ARK: Survival Ascended exposes hundreds of server settings, and the right ones turn a generic world into your server — a relaxed PvE build sanctuary, a hardcore PvP grind, or a boosted-rates family server. This guide covers the settings that actually define how your world plays, grouped by what they control, plus how and where to change them.
Rates: XP, harvest & taming
- XP Multiplier — how fast players and tames level. Raise it for faster progression.
- Harvest Amount Multiplier — resources per gather; the biggest quality-of-life lever for a build-focused server.
- Taming Speed Multiplier — how fast creatures tame. A popular boost since vanilla taming can take hours.
- Item Spoil & Crafting time — how quickly food spoils and items craft.
Difficulty & max dino level
The Difficulty Offset and difficulty override set the maximum level of wild creatures. A higher difficulty spawns higher-level dinos, which means stronger tames and better loot. Most servers raise this above default so players can find and tame high-level creatures — then use DestroyWildDinos once after changing it to repopulate at the new levels.
Breeding multipliers
Vanilla breeding is a serious time sink, so these are among the most-changed settings: mating interval, egg hatch speed, baby maturation speed and the imprint interval. Boosting maturation and shortening the imprint window makes breeding and imprinting realistic for players who can’t sit at the screen for hours — essential for most community servers. See our breeding guide.
PvP, PvE & the world
- PvP vs PvE — the single biggest identity choice for your server.
- Day/Night cycle speed — lengthen or shorten the day.
- Structure decay & pickup — how long offline bases last, and the “no transfer / structure pickup” rules.
- Third person & crosshair — toggles that shape the feel for hardcore vs casual servers.
- Tribe limits — max players per tribe and alliance rules.
Where settings live
Most settings are stored in two config files: GameUserSettings.ini (common settings and rates) and Game.ini (advanced multipliers like per-stat and breeding tweaks). You can also change many live with SetServerSetting-style admin commands (see the admin commands guide). On a managed XGamingServer plan you set them from the control panel and the server applies them for you.
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