ARK has hundreds of server settings spread across two files, a launch line and a few hidden rules about which of them wins. Most guides hand you the whole list. This one covers the part that actually goes wrong: where each setting has to live, the multipliers that work backwards, how difficulty really sets your max level, and which values are worth changing for your group. It applies to ARK: Survival Ascended (ASA) and Survival Evolved (ASE); where they differ, it says so.
Both files sit in the same folder:
ShooterGame/Saved/Config/WindowsServer/ — the ASA server is Windows-only, so this is the folder even on hosts that run it on Linux through a compatibility layer.ShooterGame/Saved/Config/LinuxServer/ShooterGame/Saved/Config/WindowsServer/GameUserSettings.ini holds the everyday rates and rules under a [ServerSettings] header: XP, taming, harvesting, difficulty, PvE, passwords, RCON. Game.ini holds the deeper changes under [/script/shootergame.shootergamemode]: breeding, per-level stats, tribe size, crop growth, item overrides.
; GameUserSettings.ini
[ServerSettings]
XPMultiplier=2.0
TamingSpeedMultiplier=3.0
; Game.ini
[/script/shootergame.shootergamemode]
EggHatchSpeedMultiplier=10.0
BabyMatureSpeedMultiplier=10.0GameUserSettings.ini do nothing. The ARK wiki is explicit that the Game.ini options can only be set in that file's section, and that putting them on the command line has no effect either.Passwords are written without quotes: ServerPassword=hunter2, not ServerPassword="hunter2".
Some settings are not in either file. On ASA the player cap is the -WinLiveMaxPlayers launch option, which defaults to 70 and replaces the old MaxPlayers. The game port must be set with -port=; the ARK wiki notes that ASA ignores the older ?port= form and falls back to 7777. Mods go in -mods= as a comma-separated list of CurseForge project IDs — our ASA mods guide covers that side.
Most ARK multipliers work the way you would expect: higher is more, or faster. A handful do not, and they are the settings people most often get exactly wrong.
MatingIntervalMultiplier scales the wait between matings, so lower is faster. Setting it to 10 because you want faster breeding makes your creatures wait ten times longer.ResourcesRespawnPeriodMultiplier scales the respawn period — lower brings resource nodes back sooner.LayEggIntervalMultiplier scales the time between unfertilised eggs — higher means fewer eggs, not more.BabyCuddleIntervalMultiplier — at 1.0 a baby asks for attention every 8 hours. Lower means more often.DayTimeSpeedScale / NightTimeSpeedScale are speeds, so a higher value makes that phase pass faster. Want longer days? Raise the night value instead. DayCycleSpeedScale scales the whole cycle; the wiki gives 0.035 for roughly a real-time 24-hour day.This is the setting most groups get wrong first, because three settings compete for it and the most obvious one is the weakest.
The game checks them in order. MaxDifficulty=True in Game.ini wins outright. Otherwise OverrideOfficialDifficulty is used if it is set. Only if neither is set does DifficultyOffset apply — and its result depends on the map, because it is scaled by the map's own difficulty.
The practical answer: set OverrideOfficialDifficulty=5.0 in [ServerSettings]. That gives the official-server spread, with wild creatures up to level 150, on every map. A difficulty of 4.0 caps them at 120. You can ignore DifficultyOffset entirely once the override is set.
Changing difficulty does not re-roll the creatures already in your world. If you want the new levels straight away, an admin can wipe wild creatures with DestroyWildDinos and let them respawn.
All of these default to 1.0 unless noted. Grouped by what you are trying to do.
XPMultiplier — experience for players, tribes and tames. 1.5–3× suits groups that play a few evenings a week.TamingSpeedMultiplier — higher is faster. The single most popular change; 3–5× turns hour-long tames into a coffee break.HarvestAmountMultiplier — yield from every harvest. 2–3× takes the grind out of building without breaking the economy.ResourcesRespawnPeriodMultiplier — remember, lower is faster.CropGrowthSpeedMultiplier (Game.ini) — crop plots.EggHatchSpeedMultiplier and BabyMatureSpeedMultiplier — higher is faster. Stock maturation for large creatures runs to days of real time; most private servers set both somewhere between 5 and 20.MatingIntervalMultiplier — lower is faster. 0.1–0.5 is common.BabyImprintAmountMultiplier — how much each imprint adds. If you speed up maturation a lot, babies grow up before they have asked for many cuddles; raising this, or lowering BabyCuddleIntervalMultiplier, keeps a full imprint reachable.BabyFoodConsumptionSpeedMultiplier — lower means babies eat less, which matters more than anything else once maturation is fast.PlayerCharacterFoodDrainMultiplier and PlayerCharacterWaterDrainMultiplier control how fast you get hungry and thirsty. PreventDiseases=True switches off disease (so far, that is Swamp Fever).
PerLevelStatsMultiplier_Player[n] in Game.ini scales what each level point gives, where n is the stat: 0 Health, 1 Stamina, 2 Torpidity, 3 Oxygen, 4 Food, 5 Water, 6 Temperature, 7 Weight, 8 Melee Damage, 9 Movement Speed, 10 Fortitude, 11 Crafting Speed. The classic quality-of-life change is weight:
PerLevelStatsMultiplier_Player[7]=2.0The same indexes work for PerLevelStatsMultiplier_DinoWild and the tamed variants.
ServerPVE=True turns off PvP. MaxNumberOfPlayersInTribe (Game.ini) caps tribe size; 0 means no limit. DisableStructureDecayPvE=True stops abandoned bases from decaying — kind to friends who take breaks, bad for a public server that fills up with ghost towns. On public servers, keep decay on and tune it with PvEStructureDecayPeriodMultiplier.
The rule of thumb from the Palworld guide holds here too: settings that multiply a rate are close to free, settings that multiply the number of things the server simulates are not.
DinoCountMultiplier — wild creature spawns. Every extra creature is AI the server runs whether anyone is nearby or not. Leave it at 1.0 unless you have a reason.MaxTamedDinos — a server-wide tame cap, 5000 by default. MaxPersonalTamedDinos is the per-tribe cap and defaults to 0, meaning none; official servers use 500 on PvE and 300 on PvP. On any server with strangers, set a per-tribe cap before the first breeder fills the map.TheMaxStructuresInRange — structures allowed in one area, 10500 by default. Raising it is how mega-bases are born, and mega-bases are where frame rates and save times go to die.AutoSavePeriodMinutes — 15 by default. On a big world every save is a noticeable pause, and the wiki warns that 0 means saving constantly. Leave it alone unless you know why you are changing it.Fast breeding is the hidden version of the same problem: with maturation at 20×, the tame count climbs much faster than anyone expects. Pair fast breeding with a tame cap.
None of this replaces RAM. ASA is a heavy server and most maps idle at or above 8 GB before anyone joins; our ARK hosting page lists what each map needs.
Pick the closest, play a week, then change one thing at a time.
ServerPVE=True, OverrideOfficialDifficulty=5.0. XP 2, taming 3–5, harvesting 2–3. Breeding: hatch and mature around 10, mating interval 0.25, imprint amount raised to match. Structure decay off. Performance settings at stock — at this size you will not notice them.
The same rates, slightly more conservative so progress still means something: XP 1.5–2, taming 3, harvesting 2. Hunger and thirst drain a little lower for people who only get an hour. Set MaxPersonalTamedDinos to a few hundred and watch the tame count after the first breeding weekend.
Strong ServerAdminPassword, decay on, a per-tribe tame cap near the official 300, and MaxNumberOfPlayersInTribe set so one tribe cannot swallow the server. Rates modestly above stock — 2× is the usual public-server pitch. Keep DinoCountMultiplier and TheMaxStructuresInRange at stock; public servers fail on accumulated state, not on launch day.
In-game admin uses ServerAdminPassword: open the console and enter EnableCheats followed by the password. For remote tools, set RCONEnabled=True and an RCONPort (TCP, 27020 by default); RCON authenticates with the same admin password. That is the reason to make it long and keep it away from your players — and to restrict the RCON port to addresses you control rather than leaving it open to the internet.
In order of likelihood: the setting is in the wrong file (breeding and per-level stats belong in Game.ini), it is outside its section header, it is a multiplier that runs backwards, the server was running when you saved, or the same thing is set on the launch line.
GameUserSettings.ini holds the common rates and server rules under [ServerSettings]. Game.ini holds deeper changes — breeding, per-level stats, tribe limits, item overrides — under [/script/shootergame.shootergamemode]. Game.ini options only work in Game.ini.
Set OverrideOfficialDifficulty=5.0 under [ServerSettings] and restart. Existing wild creatures keep their levels until they respawn or are wiped with DestroyWildDinos.
In Game.ini, raise EggHatchSpeedMultiplier and BabyMatureSpeedMultiplier, and lower MatingIntervalMultiplier. Then adjust imprinting so babies can still reach 100% before they grow up.
With the -WinLiveMaxPlayers launch option, which defaults to 70. On ASA it replaces the old MaxPlayers setting.
Yes. Both files are read at start-up, and editing while the server runs risks your changes being overwritten when it stops.
Building from scratch? Our ARK dedicated server setup guide covers the install and clusters, and the ARK: Survival Ascended hosting page covers what to run it on — with both INI files editable from the panel, so section headers stop being your problem.