Start an extinction server countdown on existing game

[Hawthorn Thistleberry 5]

My server is going to wipe in a few weeks, and I thought it'd be a pretty cool way to make this visible, and make it obvious to all the new players that wander in, is to start up the Extinction Server countdown on it. So a few questions:

1. How do you even set a SurvivalServers ARK server as an extinction server? Generally you add ?ExtinctionEventTimeInterval=2592000 (replace the number with a number of seconds) to the command line, but I can no longer even find how to get to the command line parameters.
    
2. I think, once I've started it this way, the line NextExtinctionEventUTC=1468018304 will be added to my game.ini, only with the actual time of the imminent doom of the universe. After that, do I leave the command line parameter in place, or remove it?
    
3. Is there any problem with doing this on an already running game? Is there any conflict between doing this and running The Center?

Hoping someone else has tried some of these things, but if not, once I get an answer on the first one, I'll experiment (carefully, and with lots of backups) and post replies here for the reference of anyone else who wants to do it.

[Hawthorn Thistleberry 5]

The answer to question 1 is simple: "don't forget to scroll down, dummy". That is, once I set the map to Custom, the launch parameters box appears, but it just happened to be right below my scroll so I didn't see it.

 

I had to double-check that other things that I've changed since last time I used custom launch parameters got updated there too (e.g., my admin password) and am restarting with the custom parameters in place now. After a full backup, of course!

[Hawthorn Thistleberry 5]

However, the server just doesn't want to start with that added. These are my launch parameters (sanitized of course):

 

TheCenter?NoBattlEye?Multihome=167.114.208.24?Port=18615?QueryPort=18616?SessionName=Almost Paradise: Newbie-Friendly PVE 3x Center?MaxPlayers=30?listen?ServerPassword=?ServerAdminPassword=[redacted]?RCONEnabled=True?RCONPort=18617?AltSaveDirectoryName=SavedArk27790?ForceAllStructureLocking=true?ExtinctionEventTimeInterval=1209600

 

I wonder if I also need to add GameModIDs there?

[Hawthorn Thistleberry 5]

When I added the GameModIDs (and also, while I was monkeying around, threw in an OverrideOfficialDifficulty for kicks) and restarted one more time, it all came back up. Didn't even have to restore my world data. The extinction countdown does show in the inventory screen, but so far I'm not seeing any meteor in the sky. Might be because the time of day happens to be when the moon wasn't visible so the meteor isn't (so I'm waiting), but might be because that part doesn't work on The Center.

 

The final form of my custom launch parameters is:

 

TheCenter?NoBattlEye?Multihome=167.114.208.24?Port=18615?QueryPort=18616?SessionName=Almost Paradise: Newbie-Friendly PVE 3x Center?MaxPlayers=30?listen?ServerPassword=?ServerAdminPassword=[redacted]?RCONEnabled=True?RCONPort=18617?AltSaveDirectoryName=SavedArk27790?ForceAllStructureLocking=true?ExtinctionEventTimeInterval=1209600?GameModIDs=731604991,719928795,793605978,708257555?OverrideOfficialDifficulty=5.0

 

Hope this thread might be useful for someone else.

[Hawthorn Thistleberry 5]

The Center doesn't appear to support the visual effect; the moon has finally risen and stubbornly refuses to explode. Oh well, disappointing, but at least the countdown might help clue in players.