ARK: Survival Evolved GameUserSettings.ini generator

Survival Evolved splits its settings across two files, and choosing the wrong one is the most common reason an edit appears to do nothing.

Start from a preset

Visual Settings

ini Format
Identity

Name shown in the server browser.

Gameplay

Disables player-versus-player damage server-wide.

Experience rate.

Taming speed. Higher is faster.

Resources gathered per action.

Scales wild creature levels, but only within the official cap — pair it with OverrideOfficialDifficulty to go higher.

The setting that actually raises the wild level cap. 5 gives max level 150.

Third-person camera.

Shows players their own coordinates.

World

Overall day length.

Night length. Most servers shorten nights rather than whole days.

How much damage structures resist.

Allows building through terrain clipping. Near-universal on private servers.

Structure limit per area — the practical cap on how heavy the server can get.

Players & Access

Slot limit.

Join password. Blank means public.

Required for admin commands. Change it before the server goes public.

Seconds before an idle player is kicked.

RCON & Query

Remote console access.

RCON port. Keep it off the public internet.

GameUserSettings.ini

[ServerSettings]
SessionName=Spawnly ARK SE
MaxPlayers=70
ServerPassword=
ServerAdminPassword=changeme123
ServerPVE=False
XPMultiplier=2
TamingSpeedMultiplier=5
HarvestAmountMultiplier=3
DifficultyOffset=1
OverrideOfficialDifficulty=5
AllowThirdPersonPlayer=True
ShowMapPlayerLocation=True
DayCycleSpeedScale=1
NightTimeSpeedScale=1
StructureResistanceMultiplier=1
bDisableStructurePlacementCollision=True
TheMaxStructuresInRange=10500
KickIdlePlayersPeriod=3600
RCONEnabled=False
RCONPort=27020

How GameUserSettings.ini syntax works

GameUserSettings.ini is sectioned INI, and the section header is load-bearing — a setting under the wrong header is silently ignored. Booleans are True and False with capitals, and multipliers should be written as decimals rather than whole numbers.

The mistake that costs people hours

A significant number of rate settings live only in Game.ini, not in this file, and nothing warns you when you put one in the wrong place. If a multiplier has no effect and the syntax is right, check which file it actually belongs in before changing anything else.

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