Enshrouded Server Settings Explained
Every Enshrouded server setting in enshrouded_server.json, with its key, range and default: basics, day and night, presets, gameplay values and storage.
How Enshrouded reads its settings
Enshrouded keeps all of its server settings in one file, enshrouded_server.json, and reads it once, when the server starts. The Settings page edits that file for you.
1. Change what you want. Each setting carries its own description and default, and a setting that needs a restart has a โณ badge ("Requires server restart"). On Enshrouded that is every setting.
2. Press Save Changes.
3. If the server is running, GameGrid restarts it to apply the change and says so: "The server is restarting automatically to apply them." If it is stopped, the change applies at its next start.
A value outside what Enshrouded accepts is refused when you save, with the reason. That matters more for this game than most: Enshrouded refuses to start at all when its file holds a choice it does not recognise, so the panel checks every value before it is written.
The tables below give each setting's key in the file as well as what it does, so you can match the page to the file, the Discord bot's /settings and the Customer API.
The page shows Basic and World first, then the gameplay values, Inventory & Storage, the User Groups table, and last System, for the values GameGrid manages.
Basic: name, slots, tags and chat
| Setting | Key | Values | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| Server name | name | Text | Enshrouded Server. The name shown in Enshrouded's server list, and the one your players search for |
| Player Slots | slotCount | 1 to 16 | 16 |
| Tags | tags | Ticked from a fixed list | None |
| Text chat | enableTextChat | On or off | On on GameGrid (the game's own default is off) |
| Voice chat | enableVoiceChat | On or off | Off |
| Voice chat mode | voiceChatMode | Proximity (players nearby hear you) or Global (everyone does) | Proximity |
Tags are labels players can filter the server list by, ticked as checkboxes. Only the game's own 19 are offered: Looking For Players; 14 languages (English, German, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Chinese and Taiwanese); Base Building; Exploration; and Roleplay. A tag the game does not know stops the server from starting, which is why the page offers no free text.
Text chat is needed for the chat bridge to Discord and for linking accounts by typing a code in game. GameGrid creates new servers with it on; a server keeps whatever value it already has.
World: day and night
| Setting | Key | Range | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day length | dayTimeDuration | 2 to 60 minutes | 30 minutes |
| Night length | nightTimeDuration | 2 to 60 minutes | 12 minutes |
The page shows both in minutes, although the file stores them in nanoseconds; if a description still mentions nanoseconds, go by the minutes the field shows. The Survival preset lengthens the night to 20 minutes.
Gameplay values, and the Custom preset
Enshrouded has a preset switch with five positions: Default, Relaxed, Hard, Survival and Custom. The individual gameplay values only take effect under Custom: under any other preset the game ignores them without saying so.
So GameGrid runs every Enshrouded server on Custom, and the preset switch is shown read-only in System. Every gameplay value on the Settings page is therefore the value your server actually plays with. See Enshrouded Difficulty Presets and Start From.
Start from a preset
At the top of the gameplay settings is the Start from a preset card. It offers the game's own Default, Relaxed, Hard and Survival as a starting point:
1. Choose a preset from the list.
2. Press Load. The button says how many values will change, and says Already loaded when there is nothing to change. The preset's values are filled into the form as ordinary unsaved changes: "Loaded Relaxed's values. Review them and press Save."
3. Change anything you want on top, then press Save Changes.
Nothing is saved until you press Save Changes. While every value still equals one preset's, the card says so, for example "Custom (based on Relaxed)"; otherwise "Custom: your own values."
The preset values follow the game's updates. When Keen release a new server build, GameGrid measures the four presets again on that build, and the card loads the values of the build your server runs. The line under the card names it: "The game's own preset values, read from server build โฆ". Values you have saved are never changed by this; a new measurement only changes what Load fills in.
What the presets set
These are Enshrouded's own values, measured on the server. Default has every factor at 1 (except runes back on salvage, 0.5) and every switch at its default; the table shows what the other three change.
| Setting | Relaxed | Hard | Survival |
|---|---|---|---|
| Player health, mana, stamina | x2 | x1 | x0.75, x1, x1 |
| Body heat | x2 | x1 | x0.75 |
| Diving time | x1.5 | x0.9 | x0.75 |
| Weapon durability | Off | On | On |
| Starvation | Off | Off | On |
| Food buff duration | x1.5 | x0.9 | x0.7 |
| Time in the Shroud | x1.5 | x1 | x1 |
| Tombstone | Nothing dropped | Backpack materials (as Default) | Everything |
| Glider turbulence | Off | On | On |
| Weather | Rare | Normal | Often |
| Fishing | Easy | Normal | Hard |
| Mining, crop growth, materials per stack, workstations | x1.5, x2, x1.5, x2 | x1 | x0.75, x1, x0.75, x1 |
| Runes back on salvage, rune cost of upgrades | x1, x0.5 | x0.5, x1 | x0.3, x1.25 |
| XP: combat, mining, exploration | x1.5, x1.25, x1 | x0.5, x0.5, x1 | x0.5, x0.5, x1 |
| Enemy numbers, attackers at once | Few, Few | Many, Normal | Many, Normal |
| Enemy damage, health, stamina, perception | x0.5, x0.5, x0.5, x0.75 | x1.25, x1, x1, x1 | x1.5, x1, x1, x1 |
| Boss damage, boss health, attack frequency | x0.5, x0.5, x0.5 | x1, x1.5, x1.5 | x1, x1.5, x1.5 |
| Startled animal while taming | Keeps progress | Loses some | Loses all |
| Night length | 12 minutes | 12 minutes | 20 minutes |
| Shroud curse | Easy (off) | Normal | Hard |
Hunger to starving (10 minutes), day length (30 minutes), peaceful enemies (off) and the Flame level that clears the Shroud (11) are the same in all four. These are the values of Enshrouded 1.0 (server build 25936466). Default's enemy numbers are Automatic, which Enshrouded 1.0 added.
The gameplay values
Every factor is a multiplier: 1 is the game's normal value, 2 is double, 0.5 is half. What each one feels like in play is in Enshrouded Gameplay Settings Explained.
In the file these sit inside gameSettings, so the full key of player health, as the Discord bot and the Customer API use it, is gameSettings.playerHealthFactor. Day and night length are there too.
| Group | Setting | Key | Range or values | Default |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player | Health | playerHealthFactor | 0.25 to 4 | 1 |
| Player | Mana | playerManaFactor | 0.25 to 4 | 1 |
| Player | Stamina | playerStaminaFactor | 0.25 to 4 | 1 |
| Player | Body heat | playerBodyHeatFactor | 0.5 to 2 | 1 |
| Player | Diving time | playerDivingTimeFactor | 0.5 to 2 | 1 |
| Survival | Weapon durability | enableDurability | On or off | On |
| Survival | Starvation | enableStarvingDebuff | On or off | Off |
| Survival | Food buff duration | foodBuffDurationFactor | 0.5 to 2 | 1 |
| Survival | Hunger to starving | fromHungerToStarving | 5 to 20 minutes | 10 minutes |
| Survival | Tombstone | tombstoneMode | AddBackpackMaterials, Everything, NoTombstone | AddBackpackMaterials |
| Survival | Glider turbulence | enableGliderTurbulences | On or off | On |
| Survival | Weather | weatherFrequency | Disabled, Rare, Normal, Often | Normal |
| Survival | Fishing | fishingDifficulty | VeryEasy, Easy, Normal, Hard, VeryHard | Normal |
| Shroud | Time in the Shroud | shroudTimeFactor | 0.5 to 2 | 1 |
| Shroud | Curse | curseModifier | Easy (no curse), Normal, Hard (twice as likely) | Normal |
| Shroud | Flame level that clears the Shroud: from this Flame level, Flame Altars push back the Shroud around them | flameLevelFogRemoval | 1 to 11 | 11 (the last Flame level, after the final boss) |
| Resources | Mining effectiveness | miningDamageFactor | 0.5 to 2 | 1 |
| Resources | Crop growth | plantGrowthSpeedFactor | 0.25 to 2 | 1 |
| Resources | Materials per stack | resourceDropStackAmountFactor | 0.25 to 2 | 1 |
| Resources | Workstation speed | factoryProductionSpeedFactor | 0.25 to 2 | 1 |
| Resources | Runes back on salvage | perkUpgradeRecyclingFactor | 0 to 1 | 0.5 |
| Resources | Rune cost of upgrades | perkCostFactor | 0.25 to 2 | 1 |
| Experience | Combat XP | experienceCombatFactor | 0.25 to 2 | 1 |
| Experience | Mining XP | experienceMiningFactor | 0 to 2 | 1 |
| Experience | Exploration and quest XP | experienceExplorationQuestsFactor | 0.25 to 2 | 1 |
| Enemies | Enemy numbers | randomSpawnerAmount | Automatic (scales with the players nearby), Few, Normal, Many, Extreme | Automatic |
| Enemies | Attackers at once | aggroPoolAmount | Few, Normal, Many, Extreme | Normal |
| Enemies | Enemy damage | enemyDamageFactor | 0.25 to 5 | 1 |
| Enemies | Enemy health | enemyHealthFactor | 0.25 to 4 | 1 |
| Enemies | Enemy stamina | enemyStaminaFactor | 0.5 to 2 | 1 |
| Enemies | Enemy perception range | enemyPerceptionRangeFactor | 0.5 to 2 | 1 |
| Enemies | Boss damage | bossDamageFactor | 0.2 to 5 | 1 |
| Enemies | Boss health | bossHealthFactor | 0.2 to 5 | 1 |
| Enemies | Attack frequency | threatBonus | 0.25 to 4 | 1 |
| Enemies | Peaceful enemies (attack only when provoked; bosses still fight) | pacifyAllEnemies | On or off | Off |
| Enemies | Startled animal while taming | tamingStartleRepercussion | KeepProgress, LoseSomeProgress, LoseAllProgress | LoseSomeProgress |
With day and night length, that is every gameplay value the game has. XP stops at x2: Enshrouded does not accept more.
Three fields show the game's raw form on the current page. Hunger to starving (fromHungerToStarving) is in nanoseconds: 600000000000 is 10 minutes, 300000000000 is 5 and 1200000000000 is 20. Tombstone, Weather and Fishing list the game's own words, as in the table above: NoTombstone is "nothing dropped", AddBackpackMaterials is "the materials in the backpack", and Everything is everything carried.
Inventory & Storage: bigger stacks, backpacks and chests
These three are not in enshrouded_server.json, because Enshrouded has no setting for them. GameGrid changes the game's own data for your server instead, each time it starts. Your players need no mod in their own game. Save, then restart: they apply from the next start.
| Setting | Key | Choices | What changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maximum stack size | stackSizeMultiplier | Game default, 2x, 3x, 5x, 10x | How many of an item fit in one slot, for every item that already stacks (wood, ore, food, arrows and so on), up to 65,000. Weapons, armour, tools and anything else that holds one per slot stay at one |
| More backpack slots | backpackExtraSlots | Game default, +8 slots (one row), +16 slots (two rows) | Extra rows of 8 on every backpack, up to 40 slots per backpack (the largest has 32). The inventory a player has without a backpack does not change |
| More storage slots | storageSlotMultiplier | Game default, 1.5x, 2x | More slots in the storage chests players build, rounded up to a full row of 8, up to 80 per chest |
Existing stacks, backpacks and chests keep their size, and these three are not offered in the Event Manager. Everything to know before you switch them on: Bigger Stacks, Backpacks and Chests.
User Groups
The user groups and their passwords are in the same file, and are edited in the User Groups table on this page. See User Groups, Passwords and Permissions.
System: what GameGrid manages
The System category shows, read-only, the values GameGrid sets for you: the port (queryPort), the address the server listens on (ip), the save and log folders (saveDirectory, logDirectory), and the preset switch (gameSettingsPreset, always Custom). The port and the Custom preset are written into the file before every start, so they cannot drift from what the platform expects.
Editing the file by hand
You can open enshrouded_server.json in Files, but the Settings page is the safer way: it refuses a value Enshrouded would reject, and a choice the game does not recognise in that file stops the server from starting. If you do edit it:
- Stop the server first. Enshrouded rewrites the file when it starts.
- Keep every key's spelling exactly as the game writes it. Enshrouded quietly drops a key it does not know.
- A number outside its range does not stop the server: the game uses its nearest limit instead and leaves your value in the file.
- Give every user group its own password. Two groups sharing one stops the server.
GameGrid puts the port and the Custom preset back before every start, and removes an invisible byte-order mark some editors add. If the file names another preset (Hard, say), GameGrid sets it back to Custom with that preset's values filled in, so the server still plays as Hard.
Where to go next
- Enshrouded Gameplay Settings Explained
- Enshrouded Difficulty Presets and Start From
- The Enshrouded Event Manager โ change settings for a set time
- Server Settings Guide โ the Settings page on every game