Where do these settings go?

At the end of your server's GameUserSettings.ini — and here's the part that trips people up: there is no [Shiny] 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 [Shiny] header line, put your changed settings under it, save, restart. Settings you don't include keep the mod's defaults.

Do I have to configure anything at all?

No. The mod runs fine with zero config — 10 wild Shinies, half-hour-ish spawns, Tek unlocks on. The settings exist for servers that want it their way.

Why do Shiny dinos revert to normal in single player?

The mod’s own docs call this out: add -PreventHibernation to your launch options, or Shinies revert to normal dinos when the game hibernates the area around them. Dedicated servers don’t need it.

What variants are there, and what do they do?

More than 30 — Colored and Enraged plus the Specials (Burning, Frozen, Spectral, Skeletal, the shoulder-pet Tinies, and more), each with a real ability. The full table with abilities and default spawn weights lives on the generator page.

How do I set up the Discord notifications?

Paste a Discord webhook URL into WebhookURL under [ShinyDiscord] — that one line is the entire basic setup. One catch from the official docs: the URL must be wrapped in double quotes in the INI or the mod won’t read it. Everything else in that block is message dressing.

Shiny Dinos Ascended Server Settings Explained

🥚

Spawning & Population

Spawn timing, despawn windows, level ranges, and the cap on concurrent wild Shinies — everything governing the rate and shape of what turns up on your map.

Setting	What it does	Default	Recommended
SpawnIntervalMin	The lower bound on the randomized gap between one Shiny spawn and the next — each cycle the mod draws a wait time somewhere between this and SpawnIntervalMax. Narrow the window for predictable, steady arrivals; widen it when spawns should feel less like clockwork.	30m	—
SpawnIntervalMax	The ceiling of the randomized spawn wait; the mod rolls each interval between SpawnIntervalMin and this value, so the two settings mean nothing in isolation. Adjust them as a pair to shape how often new Shinies enter the world.	60m	—
DinoLifetimeMin	The short end of a wild Shiny's expected lifespan — each spawn draws its expiry between this and DinoLifetimeMax, and anything untamed and unkilled when the timer runs out despawns to open a slot (a dino currently being tamed is spared). Zero here removes despawning altogether: every Shiny stays until someone tames or kills it.	6h	—
DinoLifetimeMax	The long end of the lifetime roll a wild Shiny receives at spawn, working in tandem with DinoLifetimeMin. If your community plays in short evening bursts and keeps missing Shinies that timed out overnight, this is the number to grow.	8h	—
DinoLevelMin	The bottom of the level band Shinies roll in. Leave it unset and the mod anchors to your server's wild level cap, letting Shinies come in as much as 20% above it — on a level-150 server that produces a 150-180 band — while species with naturally higher caps (Tek creatures, Rock Drakes, Wyverns) have their range scaled for you without extra config.	150	—
DinoLevelMax	The top of the Shiny spawn-level band, subject to the same automatic scaling for species whose wild caps run above the norm. Push it higher when finding one should feel like winning something, not just meeting a strong dino.	180	—
MaxNumShinies	The population cap on wild Shinies — the mod won't spawn a replacement until an existing one leaves the world by tame or kill, so this single number decides whether the hunt feels scarce or plentiful. Trim it when rarity is the point; grow it on crowded servers where every coordinate ping starts a footrace.	10	—
NumSearchLoops	How many random dinos the mod will test for Shiny eligibility before giving up on that spawn event entirely. Extra attempts trade fewer skipped spawns for server work — the official docs specifically caution that large values can hurt performance, so treat this as a small dial rather than a big one.	15	—
RandomSelectionBias	Controls how the mod chooses its Shiny candidate: at 0 it grabs a truly random individual from whatever is currently spawned (so common species dominate by population), while 1.0 weights every dino class equally — a Giganotosaurus turns up as readily as a Dodo. Values in between mix the two methods and tilt the odds toward rarer species.	0.2	—
PopulateOnLoad	Whether the map receives an immediate batch of Shiny Dinos at server start or game load, with a built-in guard: it does nothing if any wild Shiny already exists. Disable it to make the regular spawn-interval cycle the only source of new Shinies.	True	—
EnableUndermeshChecks	Verifies a candidate dino isn't sitting below the map geometry before converting it, sparing your players from Shinies that spawned somewhere physically unreachable. The feature carries an experimental label in the mod's documentation, so if you hit odd behavior on your setup this is a reasonable first suspect to toggle.	True	—
RunUndermeshStartupCheck	One of the mod's undocumented entries: it appears in the official default INI block, but the configuration page never describes what it does. The name points to a startup-time sweep tied to EnableUndermeshChecks — treat that as an educated guess rather than a documented fact, and keep the stock value unless the author says otherwise. ⚠ under-documented — verify on your own server.	False	—

🚫

Eligibility & Filters

The filters deciding which species can be converted at all: blacklists, whitelists, and the category cutoffs for flyers, aquatics, and unrideables.

Setting	What it does	Default	Recommended
DinoBlacklist	Excludes specific dino classes from Shiny conversion, supplied as a comma-separated list (DinoBlacklist=Bee_Character_BP_C,Gigant_Character_BP_C, for instance). Matching is substring-based — writing "Wyvern" rules out the entire Wyvern family — unless the entry ends in _C, which switches that entry to exact-match only.	(empty)	—
DinoWhitelist	Restricts Shiny conversion to only the classes you list — and once any whitelist exists, DinoBlacklist stops applying entirely. Entries match on partial names, and the mod builds its filter by scanning every dino spawner on the map, modded content included. Note the mechanical shift it triggers: candidate selection becomes per-class random, exactly the behavior of RandomSelectionBias at 1.0.	(empty)	—
NoShinyFlyer	A single switch that removes every flyer from the Shiny candidate pool — the blunt-instrument counterpart to the blacklist for owners shaping which creature types can glow. Enable it and no winged dino will ever convert, which conveniently ends the era of prize spawns leaving the scene straight up.	False	—
NoShinyAquatics	Excludes aquatic species from Shiny eligibility altogether. The developer's own example is the Megalodon: an ocean-dwelling Shiny on a server where the water goes unvisited isn't rare, it's unfindable, which is exactly the audience this toggle serves.	False	—
NoShinyUnrideables	Filters species that can't be ridden out of the Shiny pool. Worth switching on for communities where a Shiny only counts if it ends the day under a saddle — everything else is glow with no payoff.	False	—
NoActiveDuplicateDinos	Enforces one wild Shiny per species at any given moment, so the active lineup never doubles up. Disable it and nothing stops several of the same dino from glowing at once — variety becomes luck of the roll rather than a guarantee.	True	—
CanCarryShinies	Governs whether wild Shinies count as valid cargo for flyers and other carry-capable dinos. Disallowed, a Shiny has to be dealt with where it stands; allowed, the airlift-to-taming-pen play is on the table — decide whether that reads as convenience or cheese on your server.	False	—
ShiniesUntameable	When enabled, every Shiny on the map is flat-out untameable. This is the lever for hunt-focused rulesets, where a Shiny is quarry worth chasing rather than an addition to anyone's dino barn.	False	—

📡

Tracker & Notifications

Settings for the Tracker item and the notification system, and how much information each one hands your players about an active Shiny.

Setting	What it does	Default	Recommended
RequireTracker	Gates spawn alerts behind possession of the Shiny Dino Tracker item — anyone not holding one (inventory or hotbar both count) sees nothing. Useful when part of your playerbase treats Shiny announcements as noise: those who want in carry the Tracker, and everyone else plays in peace.	False	—
DisableTracker	Strips the Shiny Dino Tracker item of its tracking function without deleting it from the game. A dead Tracker still has a job: under RequireTracker it serves as the opt-in token for notifications, though nothing stops you from removing the item outright instead.	False	—
LocationPrecision	Controls the rounding applied to coordinates everywhere the mod prints them — announcements and the ShinyTracker both obey it. The scale runs both directions: positive numbers blur the location through forced rounding, negative numbers sharpen it with extra decimal places, making this the difficulty dial for the search phase.	2	—
LocationPrecisionRange	Scales coordinate precision with the target's size: the smallest species report at your base LocationPrecision, and the blur widens by up to this value for the largest. At zero the feature stays dormant and every dino gets identical treatment; give it a value when a towering Shiny deserves a vaguer pin than one you could step on without noticing.	0	—
NotificationInterval	Defines a recurring broadcast, expressed as a time span, that re-lists whichever Shinies are still present on the map. Zero means the recap never fires; the mod's documentation suggests setting one on servers running with the Tracker disabled, since players otherwise have nothing to consult mid-hunt.	0	—
NotificationDuration	The on-screen lifespan of each Shiny notification, in seconds. A presentation dial more than a gameplay one: stretch it if alerts vanish before anyone finishes reading the coordinates, trim it when the pop-ups start to feel like furniture.	8.0	—
DisableNotifications	The blanket mute — with this on, the mod suppresses its notifications entirely, no carve-outs. Reserve it for servers committed to discovery by pure exploration, where a Shiny is something you stumble into rather than get paged about.	False	—
DisableNotificationCoordinates	Keeps spawn announcements flowing but withholds the coordinate readout from them. The result is a middle ground between full spoilers and total silence: players learn that a Shiny exists, and the where becomes their problem.	False	—
DisableTrackerCoordinates	Downgrades the Shiny Tracker's location readout from exact coordinates to biome name only. That turns the item from a GPS unit into a rumor mill — you know which region a Shiny haunts, but pinpointing it stays on the player.	False	—
DisableDinoTracking	Removes the ability to track Shiny dinos through the waypoint point-of-interest system. Enable it when a HUD marker hovering over the prize undercuts whatever sport the hunt was supposed to have.	False	—
TrackerNoDinoType	Strips the species name from Tracker entries, so a Burning Dodo appears only as "Burning Dino." Useful when you want hunters to know which variant is roaming without telling them what creature to look for.	False	—
TrackerNoShinyVariant	Redacts the variant from Tracker entries instead — a Burning Dodo lists as plain "Shiny Dodo." The species stays visible while the ability stays secret, which suits servers where the surprise should hold until someone pokes it.	False	—
NotificationNoDinoType	The notification-side counterpart to the Tracker option: spawn announcements omit the species and read "Burning Dino" rather than naming the animal. Enable it when identifying what just spawned is meant to be the players' problem.	False	—
NotificationNoShinyVariant	Removes the variant name from spawn notifications, leaving "Shiny Dodo" — and combined with NotificationNoDinoType, announcements collapse to a fully anonymous "Shiny Dino." That pairing is the setup for servers that want spawns announced with nothing given away.	False	—

✨

Variants & Weighting

Controls the variant pool and its odds. There are two ways to weight it — a simple pair of chance values and a per-variant table — and filling in the table makes the simple values stop mattering.

Setting	What it does	Default	Recommended
VariantBlacklist	A do-not-spawn list for wild Shiny variants — anything named here (VariantBlacklist=Enraged, for instance) is removed from the wild rotation. Stick to full, exact variant names: the official documentation is silent on whether partial matching works. ⚠ under-documented — verify on your own server.	(empty)	—
VariantWhitelist	An allow-list that flips the logic: once any variant is named here, only listed variants can spawn in the wild and the blacklist stops mattering entirely. Reach for it when your approved lineup is shorter than the list of things you would otherwise have to ban.	(empty)	—
VariantWeightOverrides	Custom spawn weights for primary variants, measured against a 1000-point reference where 100 equals 10% — out of the box that works out to Colored at 750, Enraged at 100, and the Special variants sharing the remaining 150. Variants you leave unlisted keep their stock weights, and zero isn't a legal value here; removing a variant outright is the blacklist's job.	(empty)	—
SubVariantWeightOverrides	Weighting control for the secondary ability on combined spawns — the roll that happens after a primary variant is already chosen. It accepts every variant type the primary override does, minus Colored and Enraged; whether that second roll happens at all is governed by SubVariantChance.	(empty)	—
SimpleVariantWeightSpecial	One dial for how often Special Shinies spawn, expressed as a decimal fraction of one — the shortcut for owners who don't want to manage the full weighting table. Note the hierarchy: if VariantWeightOverrides contains anything, this value stops doing anything at all.	0.15	—
SimpleVariantWeightEnraged	The Enraged counterpart to the simple-mode Special chance: a single decimal-fraction spawn rate standing in for the full weighting system. It follows the same precedence rule — a populated VariantWeightOverrides takes over completely and this number goes quiet.	0.1	—
SubVariantChance	How often an eligible Shiny rolls a second variant ability on top of its first, which is where the rare combined spawns come from. This value only decides whether that extra roll occurs — which ability actually lands is a separate draw handled by the sub-variant weighting.	0.1	—
VariantSwapChanceAberrant	The odds, as a decimal fraction, that Shiny's transformation converts a dino to its Aberrant form. Official docs wrote this off as inactive pending Aberration's ASA release; with Aberration now out it ought to function, but that's worth verifying on your own hardware rather than taking on faith. ⚠ under-documented — verify on your own server.	0.05	—
VariantSwapChanceGenesis	Controls how likely a transformed dino comes out as a Genesis X or R creature, with Genesis 2's R dinos riding the same probability. Timing matters: Genesis Part 1 only reached ASA on July 3, 2026 — making the X side brand-new territory — while Genesis 2 hasn't arrived, leaving its R variants dormant for now. ⚠ under-documented — verify on your own server.	0.05	—
EnragedLevelMultiplier	Scales Enraged spawn levels relative to the standard Shiny range — at 1.0 they level identically to every other Shiny, while 2.0 turns a would-be 150-180 spawn into a 300-360 one. The lever to pull when the name should come with matching stats.	1.0	—
TamedShowSparkles	Governs whether the sparkle effect survives taming — out of the box, a Shiny stops glittering once it's yours. Enable it when captured Shinies should stay visibly special; skip it if permanent particle effects around the base would wear thin.	False	—

🏆

Rewards — Tek, Essence, Stats & Traits

The payout side: Tekgrams, essence, stat boosts, and traits earned when a Shiny dies or joins the tame roster.

Setting	What it does	Default	Recommended
UnlockTekOnKill	Governs whether wild Shiny kills grant Tekgrams, working through boss-tier order — Gamma engrams unlock before Beta, Beta before Alpha, and the Alpha tier is reserved exclusively for Enraged kills. Disable it on servers where Tek should remain a boss-arena trophy rather than a hunting reward.	True	—
TekNumUnlock	How many Tekgrams a single wild Shiny kill hands out; at 0 the mechanic switches off completely. Raising it turns Shiny hunting into an engram speedrun, so decide how much of the Tek tree one lucky spear throw should be worth.	1	—
TekNumUnlockAlpha	The Enraged counterpart to TekNumUnlock — how many Tekgrams each Enraged Shiny kill awards, with 0 shutting that reward off. Since Enraged fights are the harder ask, this is where you tune how well the extra danger pays.	2	—
StatBoostChance	The odds that a dino spawned by Shiny arrives carrying a stat boost — this applies to every dino the mod spawns, not a select few. It only decides how often the boost appears; the size of the bonus lives in StatBoostStrength.	0.1	—
StatBoostStrength	Defines the weight given to a boosted stat, measured against the 1.0 that every unboosted stat carries. Values near 1.0 make the boost barely noticeable, while bigger numbers produce specialists visibly warped toward one stat.	1.6	—
DisableEssenceExtraction	A master switch that removes the whole Shiny Essence system from your server; while it stays off, essence works normally. Flip it on when Shinies should be trophies rather than a resource economy — every essence-related option elsewhere in the config stops mattering once this is set.	False	—
EssenceChanceSecond	Governs the roll for a bonus second essence when a combined-variant dino (a 'Frozen Endurant' and the like) dies — the first essence is guaranteed, and this number only decides the extra one. At 1, every combined kill delivers both.	0.4	—
EnragedRawEssenceRewardAmount	Sets the raw-essence payout for taking down an Enraged Shiny. Bump it when the risk of an Enraged fight deserves a fatter reward, or keep it lean so raw essence stays worth chasing.	1	—
RadioactiveMutationBoost	How strongly a Radioactive Shiny bends breeding odds — the value multiplies the dino's baseline mutation chance. Breeders will treat anything above 1.0 as an invitation, so tune this to how central Radioactives should be in serious breeding lines.	3.0	—
TraitUpgradeChance	The probability that a Shiny spawns with its first gene trait already boosted to Tier 3. At 1 every Shiny lands pre-maxed on that trait; lower values keep a Tier 3 roll something worth bragging about.	0.33	—
TraitGainChance	How likely a Shiny Dino is to roll a second gene trait alongside its first. Push it up and tames get noticeably richer; pull it down and a double-trait Shiny becomes the server's talking point.	0.33	—

🎃

Holiday Events & Debug

Seasonal event controls — which holiday runs and what it changes — along with a logging toggle the official docs never explain.

Setting	What it does	Default	Recommended
ActiveEvent	Selects which Shiny holiday event the server runs, from four accepted values: None, Auto, FearAscended, and WinterWonderland. Auto hands the scheduling decision to the mod; naming an event pins it in place regardless of the calendar, and None keeps the server strictly business year-round.	Auto	—
UseEventColors	Toggles the color palette that comes with the running holiday event. Switch it off to keep the event itself while sparing your server the seasonal color scheme.	True	—
UseEventVariants	Determines whether the running holiday event can produce its special event variants. Together with UseEventColors this makes the holiday à la carte — variants without the colors, colors without the variants, or neither.	True	—
TrickOrTreatIgnoreWhitelist	When enabled, Trick-or-Treat's random replacement roll skips your variant whitelist and can land on any variant that isn't blacklisted — the blacklist keeps its veto either way. The intended audience is servers where every spawn is Trick-or-Treat and tamed dinos should still be free to transform into the full variant pool.	False	—
DebugLogging	One of the mod's undocumented entries: it ships in the stock INI, but the configuration page never explains what it logs or where the output lands. Presumably a troubleshooting switch, and the sensible move is to ignore it until you have a problem worth investigating. ⚠ under-documented — verify on your own server.	False	—

💬

Discord Notifications — [ShinyDiscord]

Relays announcements to a Discord channel; a single webhook link gets you a working setup. Note that these keys live in their own [ShinyDiscord] block within GameUserSettings.ini.

Setting	What it does	Default	Recommended
WebhookURL	The Discord webhook address the mod posts its announcements to — fill in this one field and the whole notification system is running, since the in-game UI offers no Discord options at all. Wrap the value in double quotes; unquoted, the mod ignores it entirely.	(empty)	—
Username	Controls the poster name shown on each Discord announcement. Leave it blank and messages arrive under "Shiny Bot"; put something here only when that persona clashes with your server's identity.	(empty)	—
AvatarURL	Sets the profile image on the webhook's Discord posts; with nothing supplied, announcements wear the Shiny Dodo icon. The double-quote requirement from the webhook URL applies here as well — an unquoted value never registers.	(empty)	—
UseEmbed	Switches Discord announcements between rich embeds and bare text messages. It also gates a whole family of options — the title and footer settings further down do nothing with embeds off — so disabling it costs more than just the formatting.	True	—
EmbedFooter	Whether each embed carries a footer line identifying the ARK server it came from — the detail that keeps things sortable when multiple servers feed one Discord channel. The wording of that line is set separately in Footer Text.	True	—
FooterText	The content of the embed footer, which out of the box is just the [ServerName] token rendering your server's name. Any replacement token works in it, and Embed Footer must be enabled for whatever you write here to appear at all.	(empty)	—
TitlePrefix	A string prepended to all your embed headlines — by default, the Shiny Dodo emoji. It only matters with embeds enabled, and it's the single place to change (or silence) the decoration on every notification title at once.	(empty)	—
TitleSpawn	The headline on spawn-event embeds, with full token support. An empty value doesn't mean no title — it means the stock "A Shiny Dino has spawned!" — and like the rest of the title settings it's ignored outside embed mode.	(empty)	—
TitleDespawn	What the embed says up top when a Shiny times out and vanishes. Left unset, the mod supplies "A Shiny Dino has despawned!" on its own; as with its siblings, this only applies when announcements run as embeds.	(empty)	—
TitleTamed	The headline for the embed that fires when a player lands a Shiny tame. Without a custom value it reads "A Shiny Dino has been tamed!" — serviceable, though tame announcements are exactly where a personal touch pays off.	(empty)	—
TitleKilled	The embed headline used when a Shiny dies at a player's hands. It falls back to "A Shiny Dino has been killed!" when empty; rewrite it if your server likes its kill feed with a little more drama.	(empty)	—
PatternSpawn	The full message body sent when a wild Shiny appears, built from replacement tokens — [Dino], [Location], and friends. Untouched, it produces "[Dino] has spawned at [Location]!", which does the job but carries none of your server's personality.	(empty)	—
PatternDespawn	The message body for a Shiny that vanished before anyone claimed it. The built-in fallback — "[Dino] has despawned and will be missed!" — arrives with a faint funeral air; swap in your own line if that reads wrong in your channel.	(empty)	—
PatternTamed	The message body for a successful Shiny tame, with [Dino] and [Player] tokens ready to name names. Absent a custom pattern the mod posts "[Dino] has been tamed by [Player]!" — and since these are the messages players show off, this is the pattern most worth dressing up.	(empty)	—
PatternKilled	Sets the broadcast text when a player kills a Shiny, with the usual token substitution available. An empty value isn't a silent kill — the mod falls back to its stock "[Dino] has been killed by [Player]!" announcement. Rewrite it when a Shiny death on your server calls for eulogy, gloating, or both.	(empty)	—
PatternKilledEssence	The variant announcement for when a Shiny's killer also harvests its essence — the mod treats this as its own event and, left blank, uses a built-in line that tacks the essence theft onto the standard kill message. Tokens work here exactly as they do in the neighboring patterns.	(empty)	—