V Rising splits its server config across two JSON files: ServerHostSettings.json runs the box (name, ports, RCON, saves) and ServerGameSettings.json holds the rules (PvP, castle damage, rates, vampire power). Here's every setting that matters — which file it lives in, what it does in plain English, and a sensible value — plus the gotchas that quietly eat your changes, like the GameSettingsPreset field that overrides your whole game-settings file.
ServerGameSettings.json and ServerHostSettings.json files — correct nesting (Rcon, VampireStatModifiers, GameTimeModifiers, CastleStatModifiers_Global, PlayerInteractionSettings), no counting braces, and it warns you about the preset-override and RCON-password traps.The basics players see, plus ports and listing. This controls the box, not the game rules.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| Name | The name shown in the in-game server browser. Default is also what every un-configured server is called, so change it unless you enjoy being one of a thousand identical entries. | My V Rising Server | your name |
| Password | Join password. Leave blank for an open public server; set one to make it private (friends still connect via the browser or direct-connect with the password). | (empty) | empty / set |
| Port | UDP port players connect on. Forward it on your router and open it on the firewall. Change it (and the query port) only if you run more than one server on a box. | 27015 | 27015 |
| QueryPort | UDP port the Steam browser queries for server info. Default is one above the game port. Without it set and forwarded, your server may show empty or not at all. | 27016 | 27016 |
| Secure | Valve Anti-Cheat. On by default and should stay on — turning it off invites cheaters on a public server. | true | On |
| ListOnSteam | Whether the server appears in the Steam browser. Off = hidden, reachable only by direct-connect (IP + port). Independent of the EOS listing. | true | On |
| ListOnEOS | Whether the server is listed via Epic Online Services, the other browser V Rising uses. Turn both this and List on Steam off for a fully unlisted server. | true | On |
Player cap, tick rate, autosave, and remote console — plus the one preset switch that can silently override your whole game-settings file.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| MaxConnectedUsers | Total concurrent players. The hard cap is 128 — the game won't go higher. Each player adds a castle to simulate, so performance falls off well before the cap on modest hardware. | 40 | 10–40 |
| MaxConnectedAdmins | Extra slots for admins above the player cap, so staff can always join when the server is full. Bonus capacity, not carved out of the player cap. | 4 | 4 |
| ServerFps | How many times per second the server simulates the world. Higher (up to 60) makes combat crisper but costs CPU; 30 is the sweet spot for most servers. | 30 | 30 |
| SaveName | The save directory name the server loads from. Change it on a live server and you boot a different (usually empty) world. Set once and leave it alone. | world1 | world1 |
| AutoSaveCount | How many rolling autosave backups to keep before overwriting the oldest. More = deeper rollback history if a save corrupts, at the cost of disk. | 20 | 20 |
| AutoSaveInterval | Seconds between automatic saves. Shorter loses less on a crash but causes more micro-stutter; longer is smoother but riskier. 120 = every 2 minutes. | 120 | 120 |
| RconEnabled | Turns on the remote console most management tools and restart scripts connect through. RCON is TCP, separate from the UDP game/query ports — forward its own port. | false | Off |
| RconPassword | Password RCON clients authenticate with. Must be set if RCON is enabled, or the listener silently won't start. Use a long random string — this is full admin over your server. | (empty) | long random |
| GameSettingsPreset | Name of a built-in gameplay preset (e.g. StandardPvP). ⚠ If set, the server IGNORES your ServerGameSettings.json entirely and uses the preset. Leave it blank to use your custom settings. | (empty) | empty |
GameSettingsPreset is the #1 reason "my settings didn't apply" — the server uses the named preset and ignores your whole ServerGameSettings.json. Keep it blank. And if you enable RCON, set a password or the RCON listener never starts.The core ruleset — PvP vs PvE, when castles and players can be damaged, siege strength, and loot rules.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| GameModeType | The master switch. PvP lets players damage each other; PvE is cooperative — they can't. For a no-PvP server, set this to PvE rather than fighting the damage dials below. | PvP | PvP / PvE |
| CastleDamageMode | When castles can be damaged. Always = raidable any time; Never = indestructible (the usual PvE choice); TimeRestricted = only during your raid windows. The headline raid-rules dial. | Always | Always / TimeRestricted |
| PlayerDamageMode | When players can damage each other. Always = open PvP 24/7; TimeRestricted = only during your player windows. No "Never" here — use PvE mode for that. | Always | Always |
| CastleHeartDamageMode | How the castle heart can be taken. CanBeDestroyedByPlayers = smashed outright; ...OnlyWhenDecaying = offline protection; CanBeSeizedOrDestroyedByPlayers = raiders can claim the base. Seizing is the brutal full-takeover. | CanBeDestroyedByPlayers | CanBeDestroyedByPlayers |
| PvPProtectionMode | No-PvP grace period for fresh characters. Disabled / Short / Medium / Long. Keep it on so new players aren't spawn-camped into quitting. | Medium | Medium |
| SiegeWeaponHealth | How tough the Siege Golem is — effectively how long a raid has to breach a base. Normal through escalating High → Max tiers favour attackers. Tune alongside the siege timer. | Normal | Normal |
| DeathContainerPermission | Who can loot the container your stuff drops into on death. Anyone = wild-west PvP looting; ClanMembers = clan only; OnlySelf = only you (the PvE choice). | Anyone | Anyone / OnlySelf |
| BloodBoundEquipment | When on, equipped gear is soulbound — it stays with you on death instead of dropping for looters. Softens PvP so one loss doesn't strip you bare. Off = harsher full-loot. | true | On |
| CanLootEnemyContainers | Whether players can open another clan's chests during a raid. On = the whole point of raiding; off for a "fight but don't steal" hybrid or a PvE server. | true | On (PvP) / Off (PvE) |
| TeleportBoundItems | Whether you can carry normally teleport-locked materials (ore, plant fibre) through waygates. On = quality-of-life; off restores the vanilla overland-hauling restriction. | true | On |
GameModeType to PvE; there's no "Never" option on Player Damage Mode. Blood-bound gear on means PvP kills don't net the loser's equipment — turn it off for full-loot.The progression dials — gather, craft, research, costs, drains. All default to 1.0 (vanilla). Costs go the other way: lower is cheaper.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| MaterialYieldModifier_Global | How much you get per resource node hit — the single most-tweaked V Rising rate. 2× halves gathering time; 4–5× turns it into a checkbox. The headline "boosted server" dial. | 1.0 | 1.0–2.0 |
| BloodEssenceYieldModifier | Blood Essence harvested from creatures — the fuel for your castle heart and servants. Raise it so players spend less time topping off the heart. | 1.0 | 1.0–2.0 |
| CraftRateModifier | How fast crafting stations produce items. Higher is faster — 2× halves every timer. A near-universal quality-of-life tweak. | 1.0 | 1.0–2.0 |
| RefinementRateModifier | How fast refining stations (sawmills, furnaces, grinders) convert raw materials. Higher is faster. Pairs with refinement cost so the supply chain flows. | 1.0 | 1.0–2.0 |
| ResearchTimeModifier | How long research takes to complete. Lower is faster — 0.5 halves the wait to unlock recipes. The standard boosted-server move. | 1.0 | 0.5–1.0 |
| RecipeCostModifier | Materials required to craft items. Lower is cheaper. Combine 0.5 here with higher Resource Yield for proper boosted-server tuning. | 1.0 | 1.0 |
| ServantConvertRateModifier | How fast captured humans convert into servants in the coffin. Higher is faster — 2–3× makes converting feel like a reward, not a punishment. | 1.0 | 1.0–2.0 |
The vampire hazards — sun, garlic, holy ground, silver — plus blood drain and durability wear. Set to 0 to disable a hazard.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| SunDamageModifier | How much daylight damages you — the defining vampire constraint. 0 lets you walk around at noon (very casual); 2× makes daytime lethal and forces nocturnal play. The big "how vampire is this server" dial. | 1.0 | 1.0 |
| GarlicAreaStrengthModifier | How harshly garlic-saturated areas (towns, dungeons) debuff you. 0 removes the penalty; higher makes settlements genuinely hostile. | 1.0 | 1.0 |
| HolyAreaStrengthModifier | How much holy ground (cathedrals, Church zones) burns you. 0 disables it; higher makes the late-game holy gauntlet a real difficulty lever. | 1.0 | 1.0 |
| SilverStrengthModifier | How much carrying or being hit by silver hurts. 0 removes the penalty (so you can stockpile coins freely); higher makes the silver economy dangerous to handle. | 1.0 | 1.0 |
| BloodDrainModifier | How fast your blood pool depletes as you act — V Rising's hunger equivalent. Higher drains faster (hardcore); lower eases upkeep for a relaxed pace. | 1.0 | 1.0 |
| DurabilityDrainModifier | How fast weapons and armour lose durability with use. Higher wears gear out faster (more repair pressure); set it low on a casual server so players aren't always at the bench. | 1.0 | 1.0 |
SunDamageModifier to 0 and the whole game stops being about dodging daylight; leave it at 1.0 (or push to 2×) to keep V Rising feeling like a vampire survival game. The area hazards (garlic/holy/silver) all accept 0 to switch a hazard off entirely.Player power scaling — health, energy, and the damage stats. All default to 1.0 and nest under VampireStatModifiers.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| VampireMaxHealthModifier | Multiplier on player max health. Raise for tankier vampires and more forgiving fights (PvE/casual); lower for a lethal, glass-cannon server. | 1.0 | 1.0 |
| VampirePhysicalPowerModifier | Multiplier on melee/weapon damage players deal. Raise on PvE for faster boss kills; raise carefully on PvP since it shortens fights. Pairs with Spell Power. | 1.0 | 1.0 |
| VampireSpellPowerModifier | Multiplier on ability/spell damage players deal. Raise to favour caster builds; on PvP tune it alongside Physical Power to keep the two in balance. | 1.0 | 1.0 |
Clan size, castle spacing, decay, the siege timer, and castles per clan. Decay is the classic "I went on holiday and lost my base" pain point.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| ClanSize | Maximum members per clan. Small caps (2–4) keep PvP balanced and stop zerg clans steamrolling; larger caps (10+) suit big PvE communities. 1 makes it solo-only. | 4 | 4 |
| CastleLimit | How many separate castles a clan can own at once. Default 2 (main base plus an outpost). More castles per clan locks down more of the map. Nests under CastleStatModifiers_Global. | 2 | 2 |
| CastleMinimumDistanceInFloors | Minimum gap, in floor tiles, between one clan's castle and another's. Larger spreads bases out and reduces boxing-in griefing; 0 lets players build wall-to-wall. | 2 | 2 |
| CastleDecayRateModifier | How fast a castle decays when its heart runs out of fuel. Higher decays faster; lower preserves bases longer. To effectively disable decay set a tiny value like 0.1, not a literal 0. | 1.0 | 0.1–1.0 |
| CastleBloodEssenceDrainModifier | How fast the castle heart consumes stored Blood Essence to stay powered. Lower means you refuel less often; drop it on a casual server so players aren't constantly feeding the heart. | 1.0 | 1.0 |
| CastleSiegeTimer | Seconds a castle stays in the vulnerable "under siege" state once a Siege Golem is activated. 420 = 7 minutes. Longer favours attackers; tune alongside Siege Weapon Health. | 420 | 420 |
CastleDecayRateModifier and CastleBloodEssenceDrainModifier. Note: to disable decay, set the rate to a small value like 0.1 rather than exactly 0, which can behave oddly. For a no-raid PvE server, set Castle Damage Mode to Never instead of fiddling with decay.Day length and the blood-moon schedule. These nest under GameTimeModifiers. Longer days = more daylight to dodge if sun damage is on.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| GTM_DayDurationInSeconds | Real-world seconds for one full day-night cycle. 1080 = 18 minutes. Shorter cycles bring night (and safety from the sun) around faster; longer stretch each day out. | 1080 | 1080 |
| GTM_BloodMoonFrequency_Min | Earliest, in in-game days, a blood moon can occur after the last one. The game picks a random day between this and Max, so blood moons aren't perfectly predictable. | 10 | 10 |
| GTM_BloodMoonFrequency_Max | Latest, in in-game days, before a blood moon must occur. With Min, the actual day lands in the 10–18 range by default. Lower for more frequent blood moons. | 18 | 18 |
| GTM_BloodMoonBuff | How strong the blood-moon player buff is, as a fraction. 0.2 keeps it meaningful without warping the meta; 0 makes the blood moon purely atmospheric. | 0.2 | 0.2 |
Separate weekday/weekend windows for player combat and for castle raiding. Only apply when the matching mode above is set to TimeRestricted.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| PIS_TimeZone | Which clock the windows are measured against. Local = the server machine's time; UTC = universal. Pick UTC for an international server so everyone reads the window the same way. | Local | Local / UTC |
| PIS_VSCastleWeekdayStartHour | Hour (0–23) castles become raidable on weekdays — the "raid window," independent from player combat. 17 = 5pm. Only used when Castle Damage Mode is TimeRestricted. | 17 | 17 |
| PIS_VSCastleWeekdayEndHour | Hour (0–23) the weekday castle-raid window closes. 23 = 11pm. Outside this window bases can't be damaged. | 23 | 23 |
| PIS_VSCastleWeekendStartHour | Hour (0–23) castles become raidable on weekends. Weekend windows are often longer, since that's when most of the server is online. | 17 | 15 |
| PIS_VSCastleWeekendEndHour | Hour (0–23) the weekend castle-raid window closes. Outside the window, bases are safe. | 23 | 23 |
| PIS_VSPlayerWeekdayStartHour | Hour (0–23) player-vs-player combat opens on weekdays — a separate schedule from castle raiding (weekend hours have their own fields too). 17 = 5pm. Only used when Player Damage Mode is TimeRestricted. | 17 | 17 |
| PIS_VSPlayerWeekdayEndHour | Hour (0–23) weekday player combat closes. Outside this window players can't damage each other. Only relevant under TimeRestricted player damage. | 23 | 23 |
TimeRestricted (in Game Mode & PvP). Player combat and castle raiding have independent schedules, so you can run a server where players fight every evening but bases are only raidable on weekends. Hours are 0–23 (24-hour); minutes are always 0 in the generator.No single "best" — but this is a comfortable evening-PvP server for a group of friends: open fighting, raids confined to evenings so nobody gets offline-wrecked at 3am, and a light QoL boost. Set a password, forward your ports, and leave GameSettingsPreset blank.
| Setting | Value | Why |
|---|---|---|
| GameModeType | PvP | Open vampire combat — the point of a PvP server. |
| CastleDamageMode | TimeRestricted | Bases only raidable during your set window, so nobody loses everything offline at 3am. |
| PvPProtectionMode | Medium | Fresh characters get a grace period so they aren't spawn-camped into quitting. |
| ClanSize | 4 | Keeps clans small enough that no one group steamrolls the server. |
| CastleDecayRateModifier | 0.5 | Softens decay so a few days away doesn't cost you the base. |
| MaterialYieldModifier_Global | 1.5 | Trims the gather grind for a working-adults group without trivializing it. |
| CraftRateModifier | 1.5 | Faster crafting so evenings are spent fighting, not waiting on the furnace. |
| GameSettingsPreset | (blank) | A non-empty value would make the server ignore all of the above — keep it blank. |
ServerHostSettings.json runs the box (name, ports, player cap, RCON, save schedule) and ServerGameSettings.json holds the gameplay rules (PvP mode, castle damage, clan size, rates, vampire power, raid windows). Edit the right file — if a change "doesn't take," you probably edited the other one — then stop the server, swap the files, and restart. Or build both correctly nested with the generator.save-data\Settings\ — both ServerGameSettings.json and ServerHostSettings.json sit in that folder. On most managed hosts (G-Portal, etc.) they're under "Configuration Files" or the panel's file manager, same two names. Always stop the server before swapping them in — V Rising reads them on boot and can overwrite your edits on shutdown if you change them while it's running.GameSettingsPreset field in ServerHostSettings.json. If it holds a non-empty value (like StandardPvP), the server ignores your ServerGameSettings.json entirely and uses the named preset instead — so all your careful tuning is silently discarded. To use your own rules, that field must be blank. The other classic: editing the wrong file, or editing while the server was running (it overwrites on shutdown).GameModeType is the master switch. PvP lets players damage each other and raid castles; PvE is cooperative — players can't hurt each other. There's no "Never" on Player Damage Mode, so for a true no-PvP server set the mode to PvE rather than fighting the damage dials. On PvE most servers also set CastleDamageMode to Never (indestructible bases), DeathContainerPermission to OnlySelf, and turn off CanLootEnemyContainers.CastleDamageMode to TimeRestricted, then set the weekday/weekend castle-raid start and end hours (0–23) under the raid-window settings. They do nothing until the mode is TimeRestricted. Player combat and castle raiding have independent schedules — you can let players fight every evening (PlayerDamageMode TimeRestricted with its own hours) while bases are only raidable on weekends. The generator warns you if you set window hours without flipping the matching mode.CastleDecayRateModifier (how fast a base decays once its heart runs dry) and CastleBloodEssenceDrainModifier (how fast the heart burns fuel) — both default to 1.0. To effectively disable decay, set the rate to a small value like 0.1 rather than exactly 0, which can behave oddly. On a PvE server you can also just set CastleDamageMode to Never so bases can't be destroyed at all.