Enshrouded Server Settings: What Lives in enshrouded_server.json and How to Tune Difficulty for Your Group

Enshrouded has no long server settings menu; almost everything lives in one file, enshrouded_server.json: the name, slots, player groups with passwords, a difficulty preset and a block of fine-grained settings with a few dozen parameters. The file is small, but it is easy either to change nothing at all (edits don't apply) or to change far too much. Below: what's in it, what to edit on the Files tab, what only on Startup, and which values make sense for a group of friends.

If you're still choosing a server, start with our overview of Enshrouded server hosting: it covers memory, plans and how the four password groups work. This article is about configuring a server that is already running.

Where the file is and how to edit it

The file sits in the server root. In the panel, open the Files tab, find enshrouded_server.json, make your changes and save, then restart the server: settings are read only at startup. It's plain JSON, so watch the syntax: one lost quote or a trailing comma after the last element and the server starts with defaults or doesn't start at all.

Two exceptions. On our servers the server name (name) and the group passwords in userGroups are taken from the Startup tab and written into the file on every start. Editing them in the file is pointless: after a restart the Startup values come back. The Admin group password is also shown in your client area.

Before a big edit, copy the file next to itself, for example as enshrouded_server.json.bak, or make a manual backup on the Backups tab, so you always have something to roll back to.

What not to touch: network and slots

• ip and queryPort: the address and port the server listens on. The panel sets them; change them and the server stops being reachable at the address from your client area.
• slotCount: the number of player slots. The game's own ceiling is 16, so anything higher is pointless. We describe plans by player count precisely because every person online adds work for memory and CPU.
• saveDirectory and logDirectory: the save and log folders. No reason to change them; rename the save folder and the server starts an empty world.

Difficulty presets: gameSettingsPreset

The main switch is gameSettingsPreset. It takes one of these values:

• Default: the game's standard balance, the right starting point if your group is playing for the first time.
• Relaxed: softer. Enemies are weaker and survival forgives more mistakes. A good pick for a group that meets for a couple of hours in the evening and wants to build rather than die.
• Hard: enemies hit harder and live longer, resources are more precious.
• Survival: the harshest option with tough penalties, for groups that have already finished the game.
• Custom: the game takes values from the gameSettings block and you assemble the difficulty yourself.

Important: while any preset other than Custom is active, the gameSettings block is ignored no matter how much you edit it. This is the most common reason behind "I changed it and nothing happened".

The gameSettings block: what controls what

Most parameters are multipliers: 1 means the standard value, 0.5 half of it, 2 twice as much. Let's go through them by group.

Player and survival

• playerHealthFactor, playerManaFactor, playerStaminaFactor: player health, mana and stamina.
• playerBodyHeatFactor: how quickly the character gets cold in frosty regions.
• enableDurability: whether gear wears out; enableStarvingDebuff: whether there is a penalty for hunger.
• foodBuffDurationFactor: how long food buffs last.
• shroudTimeFactor: how long you can stay in the Shroud; above one means longer.

Enemies and bosses

• enemyHealthFactor, enemyDamageFactor, enemyStaminaFactor, enemyPerceptionRangeFactor: enemy health, damage, stamina and the distance at which they notice you.
• bossHealthFactor and bossDamageFactor: the same for bosses, separately.
• randomSpawnerAmount and aggroPoolAmount: how many enemies spawn in the world and how many attack at once: Few, Normal, Many, Extreme. These two have the biggest effect on server load.
• pacifyAllEnemies: enemies don't attack first; a mode for pure building.

World, gathering and production

• dayTimeDuration and nightTimeDuration: the length of day and night. Values are in nanoseconds: 30 minutes is 1800000000000, 12 minutes is 720000000000.
• weatherFrequency: how often the weather changes: Disabled, Rare, Normal, Often.
• miningDamageFactor, plantGrowthSpeedFactor, resourceDropStackAmountFactor, factoryProductionSpeedFactor: mining speed, plant growth, the size of resource stacks that drop and how fast crafting stations work.
• enableGliderTurbulences: turbulence while gliding.

Experience, perks and death

• experienceCombatFactor, experienceMiningFactor, experienceExplorationQuestsFactor: experience from combat, mining, and exploration with quests.
• perkCostFactor: the price of perks; perkUpgradeRecyclingFactor: how many points come back on a reset.
• tombstoneMode: what stays in the tombstone on death: AddBackpackMaterials (default, backpack materials are lost), Everything (all contents) or NoTombstone (nothing is lost).
• tamingStartleRepercussion: what happens to taming progress when an animal is startled: KeepProgress, LoseSomeProgress or LoseAllProgress.

Player groups in userGroups

The userGroups block describes the four groups: Admin, Friend, Guest and Visitor. Each has a name, a password and permissions: canKickBan (kick and ban), canAccessInventories (open chests), canEditBase and canExtendBase (rebuild and expand bases), plus reservedSlots, the number of slots reserved for the group so an admin can always get onto a full server.

Change group passwords only on the Startup tab. Permissions can be adjusted in the file, for example to stop guests opening chests, but check after a restart that the edit survived, and hand out passwords by trust level: Admin for yourself, Friend for regular players, Guest and Visitor for people you invite for a single evening.

Three ready-made setups for a group

• After work, a couple of evenings a week. The Relaxed preset, or Custom with enemyDamageFactor around 0.75, foodBuffDurationFactor 1.5, tombstoneMode set to NoTombstone and plantGrowthSpeedFactor 1.5 so the crops grow between sessions.
• A normal playthrough. Default. For a bit more tension without extra pain, raise enemyHealthFactor to 1.25 and leave the rest alone.
• Second playthrough, experienced group. Hard, or Custom with randomSpawnerAmount Many, bossHealthFactor 1.5, tombstoneMode Everything and a longer night. Remember that Many and Extreme add noticeable work for the server: on smaller plans, check how combat feels near a big base before inviting everyone.

What to do after editing

Save the file, restart the server and open the Console tab: if the JSON is broken, the server says so in the first lines of the log. Then join yourself and check that the changes are noticeable: enemies, day length, the tombstone. If the server disappears from the in-game list after the restart, that's most likely not the settings; how to join via Steam favorites is covered in our article about a server that isn't in the list.

The habit is the same as in other survival games where settings live in one file, such as serverconfig.xml in 7 Days to Die: a copy before editing, small batches of changes, restart and check. And how often the world itself needs backing up is answered in are daily backups enough: the Enshrouded world is stored on the server and characters on the players' PCs, so rolling back the world doesn't touch the characters.