Soulmask keeps its gameplay tuning in one awkward file, GameXishu.json, written in romanized Chinese (pinyin) and wrapped in a three-block 0 / 1 / 2 structure. This page explains the roughly sixty settings that actually change how a server plays, in plain English. The full list of every key lives in the config generator.
GameXishu.json (in your server's save/config folder); the same value has to be written into all three 0 / 1 / 2 blocks or the game ignores it. Server name, ports, player cap and passwords are launch-script flags, not part of that file. Stop the server, edit or replace the file, then restart. To skip the pinyin and the brace-counting, build both the config and the start script with the Soulmask config generator, which writes every value into all three blocks for you. This page covers the settings that matter; the generator holds the complete key set.Name, ports, player cap and passwords. These are command-line flags on the server executable, not entries in GameXishu.json.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| SteamServerName | The name shown in the server browser. Leave it default and you vanish among every other unconfigured box, so set something searchable. | My Soulmask Server | your name |
| Port | The main game/UDP port players connect through. Forward it on your router and open the firewall. Change it only if you run more than one server on a box. | 8777 | 8777 |
| QueryPort | The Steam query port used to list the server and answer browser pings. Forward this alongside the game port or the server runs but never appears in the list. | 27015 | 27015 |
| MaxPlayers | How many players can be online at once. Every extra slot costs CPU and RAM, so set what your hardware actually handles rather than the ceiling. | 50 | 16-40 |
| Ruleset | The base mode the server launches in: pve (no player-versus-player damage) or pvp. This sets the overall rule frame; the PvP damage ratios and time windows only bite when it is pvp. | pve | pve |
| AdminPassword | Grants in-game admin commands to anyone who enters it. Blank by default, which means no admin control at all. Set a long private one before you open the doors. | (blank) | set a strong one |
| JoinPassword | A single password required to connect. Leave blank for a public server; set it to keep a private group's world invite-only. | (blank) | blank or private |
| SavingInterval | Seconds between automatic world saves. Lower means less lost progress after a crash but more disk churn. 300 (5 minutes) is a sane middle. | 300 | 300 |
How fast players level and how high they can go. The rate fields are multipliers where 1.0 is vanilla; MaxLevel is a whole number.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| ExpRatio | The master XP multiplier applied on top of every other XP source. The simplest single dial for overall level pace. 2x roughly doubles levelling speed. | 1 | 1.5-2 |
| ShaGuaiExpRatio | XP earned from killing creatures and enemies specifically. Raise it on a combat-focused server without speeding up gathering and crafting XP. | 1 | 1 |
| CaiJiExpRatio | XP earned from gathering: mining, chopping and picking. Independent of kill XP, so you can favour builders over fighters. | 1 | 1 |
| MaxLevel | The character level ceiling. Whole number, not a multiplier. Raising it extends the endgame; lowering it caps power for a tighter server. | 60 | 60 |
Harvest yields and crafting speed. Almost all multipliers, where higher is more or faster and below 1.0 is slower.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| CaiJiDiaoLuoRatio | General harvest yield across gathering nodes. The broad gather-rate dial; the most common lever on a boosted server. | 1 | 2 |
| CaiKuangDiaoLuoRatio | Ore and stone yield from mining specifically. Raise it if metal feels like the bottleneck in your progression. | 1 | 2 |
| DongWuShiTiDiaoLuoRatio | Loot pulled from animal carcasses (hide, meat, bone). Pairs well with a boosted hunting server. | 1 | 1.5 |
| ZhiZuoTimeRatio | Crafting duration. This one runs backwards: below 1.0 is FASTER crafting, above 1.0 is slower. Drop it to cut queue waits. | 1 | 0.5 |
| FuHuaSpeed | Egg incubation speed for hatching creatures. Higher hatches faster. A quality-of-life bump for anyone breeding animals. | 1 | 1.5 |
How fast the survival bars drain and refill. Higher consumption is harsher; higher recovery is gentler. All multipliers.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| ShiWuXiaoHaoRatio | How fast hunger drains. Above 1.0 means eating more often; below 1.0 eases the food grind. The main survival-pressure dial for food. | 1 | 0.5-1 |
| ShuiXiaoHaoRatio | How fast thirst drains. Same logic as food: lower is more forgiving. Handy to soften on maps where water is a trek. | 1 | 0.5-1 |
| QiXiXiaoHaoRatio | How fast the breath/stamina-linked bar depletes during exertion. Lower means longer sprints and dives before you gas out. | 1 | 1 |
| ShengMingHuiFuRatio | Passive health regeneration speed. Higher makes players recover between fights faster, taking some sting out of a punishing world. | 1 | 1 |
| TiLiHuiFuRatio | Stamina recovery speed. Raise it for snappier, more aggressive combat and traversal; lower it to make stamina a real resource. | 1 | 1 |
| ReDuXiShu | Temperature/heat coefficient governing how hard climate pushes on the player. Higher heat pressure makes environmental survival more demanding. | 1 | 1 |
How hard things hit and what happens when you go down. Watch the two toggles in here: they end in KaiGuan (switch), so they are on/off, not sliders.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| HuXIangShangHaiKaiGuan | Friendly fire between players. TOGGLE, not a multiplier (the KaiGuan suffix is the tell). Off means tribemates cannot hurt each other; on enables mutual damage. | false (off) | off |
| DamageYeShengRatio | Damage players deal TO wild animals. Raise it to make hunting quicker; lower it to make beasts spongier. | 1 | 1 |
| BeDamageByYeShengRatio | Damage players TAKE from wild animals. The most direct how-deadly-is-the-world dial. Drop toward 0.5 for a forgiving server. | 1 | 0.75-1 |
| DongWuDamageRatio | Damage dealt by your tamed animals. Higher turns mounts and companions into real combat assets. | 1 | 1 |
| ManRenJianShangRatio | Damage reduction on players (incoming mitigation). Higher values make players tankier; a softer alternative to nerfing enemy damage directly. | 1 | 1 |
| ManRenChuZhanCount | How many tribe-member NPCs you can field in combat at once. Whole number. Raising it lets a solo player command a bigger squad. | 3 | 3 |
| BinSiKaiGuan | The near-death downed state (bleed-out you can be revived from) rather than an instant death. TOGGLE. On by default; keeps group fights recoverable. | true (on) | on |
| PlayerDeathCantDropItemKaiGuan | Keep-inventory on death. TOGGLE. On means players do not drop their gear when they die, the softest death rule. Flagged verify: KaiGuan confirms it is a toggle, but the default is inferred, not observed. | false (off) | off |
Only relevant when the ruleset is pvp. These scale player-versus-player damage; the melee and ranged ratios ship well below 1.0 so PvP fights are slower than PvE.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| PVP_GAPVPDamageRatio | Global multiplier on all PvP damage. The master dial for how lethal player fights are; layers on top of the melee and ranged ratios below. | 1 | 1 |
| PVP_ShangHaiRatio_JinZhan | PvP melee damage ratio. Ships at 0.4, so melee hits land at 40 percent of their PvE value by default, drawing out close-quarters duels. | 0.4 | 0.4 |
| PVP_ShangHaiRatio_YuanCheng | PvP ranged damage ratio. Also 0.4 by default, keeping bows and ranged weapons from bursting players down instantly. | 0.4 | 0.4 |
| PVP_ShangHaiRatio_PlayerToPlayer_YouFang | Attacker-side player-to-player damage scaling, a finer PvP-only adjustment sitting under the global ratio. Left at 1.0 on most servers. | 1 | 1 |
PVPTime* keys (Asia / Europe / America, workday and weekend) set the hours PvP is live per region. They ship at 0 start and 24 end, meaning PvP is always on. Narrow the window to run a raid-hours-only server.Breeding, growth and how many followers a single player can hold. Mix of multipliers and whole-number caps.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| DongWuShengZhangRatio | How fast tamed animals grow to maturity. Higher shortens the wait from baby to useful adult; a big time-saver for breeders. | 1 | 1.5 |
| FanZhiJianGeRatio | The cooldown interval between animal breeding cycles. Lower means animals can breed again sooner. | 1 | 1 |
| GeRenMaxZhaoMuCount | How many NPC followers one player can recruit. Whole number. Raising it lets solo players run a larger personal crew. | 6 | 6-10 |
| GeRenMaxDongWuCount | How many tamed animals one player can own. Whole number. Bump it for ranchers, but each active animal is a server load cost. | 10 | 10 |
| ShuaXinNPCKaiGuan | Whether wild NPCs respawn in the world. TOGGLE. On keeps the map repopulated with recruitable and huntable humans; off depletes them permanently. | true (on) | on |
Whether bases rot when unattended and how much punishment they take. One toggle, the rest multipliers.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| JianZhuFuLanKaiGuan | The master switch for building decay. TOGGLE. On (default) means unmaintained structures degrade over time; off makes bases permanent with zero upkeep. | true (on) | off for casual |
| JianZhuFuLanMul | The decay-rate multiplier, only in effect when decay is on. Lower slows rot; raise it to force active-base upkeep. Zero effectively disables it while the switch stays on. | 1 | 1 |
| JianZhuXiuLiMul | How much durability each repair action restores. Higher means fewer, cheaper repair passes to patch a battered base. | 1 | 1 |
| GongJiJianZhuDamageRatio | Damage players deal to structures. The core raid dial: raise it for faster sieges, lower it to make bases harder to crack on a PvP server. | 1 | 1 |
| YeShengHitJianZhuShangHaiRatio | Damage wild animals deal to your buildings. Ships at 4x, so beasts already chew through walls fast. Drop it if roaming animals keep wrecking bases. | 4 | 1-4 |
The PvE raid system where waves of enemies assault your base. Toggle it, then scale size, strength, timing and frequency.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| RuQinKaiGuan | The master switch for invasions. TOGGLE. On (default) means enemy waves periodically attack bases; off removes the mechanic entirely for a pure build server. | true (on) | on |
| RuQinGuiMoXiShu | Invasion scale coefficient: how large each assault is (enemy counts and spread). Higher makes raids bigger and more chaotic. | 1 | 1 |
| RuQinQiangDuXiShu | Invasion intensity coefficient: how tough the attacking force is. Raise it for a real defensive challenge, lower it to keep raids survivable solo. | 1 | 1 |
| RuQinGuaiLevelXiShu | Level coefficient for invading monsters, scaling their stats. A separate knob from intensity for fine-tuning raid difficulty. | 1 | 1 |
| RuQinBeginHour | The in-game hour invasions can start (0-24). Pair it with the end hour to confine raids to certain times of day. 0 with a 24 end means any hour. | 0 | 0 |
| RuQinMaxChangCiCount | Maximum number of invasions per day. Whole number. Lower it so a small group is not defending around the clock. | 2 | 1-2 |
Day length, world clock speed, crop growth, node health and how fast dropped or stored items spoil.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| GameWorldDayTimePortion | Fraction of the full cycle that is daytime, from 0 to 1. Default 0.7 means days are longer than nights. Raise it for more daylight build time. | 0.7 | 0.7 |
| GameWorldTimePower | How fast the in-game clock runs relative to real time. Higher compresses the day/night cycle; lower stretches it out. | 24 | 24 |
| ZuoWuShengZhangRatio | Crop growth speed on your farms. Higher keeps the farm producing without constant babysitting; pairs with boosted gather rates. | 1 | 1.5 |
| ZiYuanShengMingRatio | Health of resource nodes, effectively how many hits they take to harvest. Lower means faster gathering; higher makes nodes tougher. | 1 | 1 |
| WuPinFuHuaiRatio | How fast perishable items spoil. Below 1.0 keeps food and materials fresh longer; a common comfort tweak so stored food does not rot between sessions. | 1 | 0.5-1 |
Caps applied to a whole tribe rather than one player. Whole numbers, sized for the server's group play.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| GongHuiMaxMember | Maximum players in one tribe. Whole number. Set it to your intended group size; too high on a public server enables mega-tribes that dominate. | 50 | 10-50 |
| GongHuiMaxDongWuCount | Total tamed animals a tribe can own across all members. A pooled cap that keeps animal counts (and their server load) in check. | 50 | 50 |
| GongHuiMaxZhaoMuCount | Total NPC followers a tribe can recruit across all members. Whole number. Raise it for large tribes running big labour forces. | 50 | 50 |
No single best config, but this is a comfortable starting point for a small group that wants faster progression and lighter survival pressure while keeping fights and invasions meaningful. Remember every GameXishu.json value has to land in all three 0 / 1 / 2 blocks, and set an admin password before you open up.
| Setting | Value | Why |
|---|---|---|
| ExpRatio | 2 | Doubles overall levelling so a casual group reaches the good gear in reasonable time. |
| CaiJiDiaoLuoRatio | 2 | The headline boosted-gather dial; roughly halves the harvest grind. |
| ZhiZuoTimeRatio | 0.5 | Crafting runs backwards, so 0.5 means twice as fast, cutting queue waits. |
| ShiWuXiaoHaoRatio | 0.5 | Slows hunger so food is upkeep, not a chore, on a co-op server. |
| BeDamageByYeShengRatio | 0.75 | Softens wild-animal damage for a mixed-skill group without going peaceful. |
| HuXIangShangHaiKaiGuan | off | No friendly fire, so nobody gets clipped by a tribemate mid-fight. |
| JianZhuFuLanKaiGuan | off | Turns off base decay so nothing rots between play sessions. |
| RuQinMaxChangCiCount | 1 | One invasion a day keeps raids a highlight, not a constant defence shift. |
| AdminPassword | (set one) | Blank means no admin control at all; lock it down before players join. |
GameXishu.json, in your dedicated server's save/config folder (or under Configuration Files on a managed host). The catch: the file is written in romanized Chinese key names and split into three blocks labelled 0, 1 and 2, and the same value has to be written into all three or the game ignores your change. Server name, ports, player cap and passwords are separate launch-script flags. Stop the server, edit or replace the file, then restart. The easiest path is to build it with the generator, which fills all three blocks for you.GameXishu.json. It uses pinyin key names like ExpRatio and CaiJiDiaoLuoRatio, and repeats every setting across three numbered blocks. Server identity (name, ports, MaxPlayers, passwords, ruleset) is set on the start script instead, not in that file. The config generator writes both the JSON and a ready-to-run start script.GameXishu.json holds every value three times, under blocks 0, 1 and 2, and if you change only one copy the game does not reliably pick it up. Write the value into all three. The second common trap is toggle-versus-multiplier confusion: keys ending in KaiGuan or Switch are on/off switches, so setting one to a number like 2 does nothing useful. The generator handles both the three blocks and the toggle typing automatically.ExpRatio around 2, CaiJiDiaoLuoRatio around 2, ZhiZuoTimeRatio 0.5 (lower is faster crafting), ShiWuXiaoHaoRatio 0.5 to slow hunger, and BeDamageByYeShengRatio around 0.75 so the world is forgiving but not trivial. Turn HuXIangShangHaiKaiGuan (friendly fire) off, and consider turning JianZhuFuLanKaiGuan (base decay) off so nothing rots between sessions.Ruleset launch flag: pve or pvp. On PvE, players cannot damage each other and the PVP_* ratios are dormant. On PvP, those ratios take over: the melee and ranged ratios (PVP_ShangHaiRatio_JinZhan and PVP_ShangHaiRatio_YuanCheng) ship at 0.4, so player fights are slower than PvE by design, and the PVPTime* keys let you restrict PvP to set hours per region. Set all of this up in the generator.RuQinKaiGuan; set it off for a pure building server with no raids. Left on, you scale them with RuQinGuiMoXiShu (size), RuQinQiangDuXiShu (strength) and RuQinGuaiLevelXiShu (monster level), cap them with RuQinMaxChangCiCount (invasions per day, default 2), and confine them to certain hours with RuQinBeginHour and its end-hour partner.