Enshrouded Server Settings

Enshrouded server settings live in one file, enshrouded_server.json, in the same folder as enshrouded_server.exe. It holds the server name, player slots, passwords and roles, plus 37 world settings that change how the game plays. We booted Keen's dedicated server with test files to check every range and default on this page, so the numbers below are what the server actually does, not what its readme says.

Checked September 26, 2026 on the current dedicated server build (data build 1024233, May 11, 2026). Enshrouded 1.0 comes out October 15, 2026 and may add settings. Setting up a server from scratch? Start with the Enshrouded dedicated server setup guide.

The preset trap

gameSettingsPreset picks the difficulty: Default, Relaxed, Hard, Survival or Custom. Unless it says Custom, the server ignores every number under gameSettings.

We tested it. With the preset on Relaxed, we set player health to 3, enemy damage to 4 and a 10 minute day. The server played Relaxed's own values: health 2, enemy damage 0.5, a 30 minute day. Our numbers stayed in the file and did nothing.

To use your own numbers, set the preset to Custom first. Keen's own settings page says the same thing: only Custom lets you change the individual values.

In our control panel's Server Config, a row under a preset shows the preset's own value and a tag with its name.

What each preset changes

These are the values each preset plays, read from the server's own settings table. Rows the presets leave alone are at the bottom.

Setting	Default	Relaxed	Hard	Survival
Player Health	1	2	1	0.75
Player Mana	1	2	1	1
Player Stamina	1	2	1	1
Frost Resistance Duration	1	2	1	0.75
Diving Time	1	1.5	0.9	0.75
Time in the Shroud	1	1.5	1	1
Weapon Durability	On	Off	On	On
Starvation Mode	Off	Off	Off	On
Food Buff Duration	1	1.5	0.9	0.7
Loot Loss On Death	Materials	Keep All	Materials	Lose All
Curse Chance	Normal	Easy (no curses)	Normal	Hard
Mining Damage	1	1.5	1	0.75
Loot Amount	1	1.5	1	0.75
Plant Growth Speed	1	2	1	1
Workshop Production Speed	1	2	1	1
Weapon Upgrade Cost	1	0.5	1	1.25
Weapon Upgrade Recycling Yield	0.5	1	0.5	0.3
Combat XP	1	1.5	0.5	0.5
Mining XP	1	1.25	0.5	0.5
Enemy Amount	Normal	Few	Many	Many
Simultaneous Enemy Attacks	Normal	Few	Normal	Normal
Enemy Damage	1	0.5	1.5	1.5
Enemy Health	1	0.5	1	1
Enemy Stamina	1	0.5	1	1
Enemy Perception Range	1	0.75	1	1
Enemy Attack Frequency	1	0.5	1.5	1.5
Boss Damage	1	0.5	1	1
Boss Health	1	0.5	1.5	1.5
Harsh Weather Occurrences	Normal	Rare	Normal	Often
Fishing Difficulty	Normal	Easy	Normal	Hard
Glider Turbulences	On	Off	On	On
Taming Startle Repercussion	Lose some	Keep progress	Lose some	Lose all
Night Duration	12 min	12 min	12 min	20 min

No preset changes Quest & Exploration XP (1), Time until starvation (10 minutes), Pacify Enemies (off) or Day Duration (30 minutes).

Hard and Survival both write Many for Enemy Amount, which the game's menu shows as More. See the naming note below.

Every world setting

All 37 go under "gameSettings" in the file. Ranges are what the server clamps to. Numbers are multipliers where 1 is normal, except the three durations.

The game's own menu offers fixed steps, for example 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1, 1.5, 2, 3 and 4 for Player Health. The server accepts any number inside the range.

Player

Setting	Key	Range	Default	What it does
Player Health	playerHealthFactor	0.25 to 4	1	Scales maximum health
Player Mana	playerManaFactor	0.25 to 4	1	Scales maximum mana
Player Stamina	playerStaminaFactor	0.25 to 4	1	Scales maximum stamina
Frost Resistance Duration	playerBodyHeatFactor	0.5 to 2	1	How long you last in the cold before hypothermia
Diving Time	playerDivingTimeFactor	0.75 to 2	1	How long you can stay underwater
Time in the Shroud	shroudTimeFactor	0.5 to 2	1	How long you can stay inside the Shroud

Survival and death

Setting	Key	Range	Default	What it does
Weapon Durability	enableDurability	true or false	true	false means weapons never break
Starvation Mode	enableStarvingDebuff	true or false	false	Adds hunger. A starving player loses health until they eat or drink
Time until starvation	fromHungerToStarving	5 to 20 minutes	10 minutes	How long the hungry state lasts before starving starts. Written in nanoseconds
Food Buff Duration	foodBuffDurationFactor	0.5 to 2	1	Scales how long food buffs last
Loot Loss On Death	tombstoneMode	AddBackpackMaterials, Everything, NoTombstone	AddBackpackMaterials	What goes into your tombstone: materials only, everything (Lose All) or nothing (Keep All)
Curse Chance	curseModifier	Easy, Normal, Hard	Normal	Shroud curse odds. Easy turns curses off, Hard doubles Normal's chance

Resources, crafting and XP

Setting	Key	Range	Default	What it does
Mining Damage	miningDamageFactor	0.5 to 2	1	More terraforming and more resources per hit
Loot Amount	resourceDropStackAmountFactor	0.25 to 2	1	Materials per loot stack from chests and enemies
Plant Growth Speed	plantGrowthSpeedFactor	0.25 to 2	1	How fast crops grow
Workshop Production Speed	factoryProductionSpeedFactor	0.25 to 2	1	How fast workshops craft
Weapon Upgrade Cost	perkCostFactor	0.25 to 2	1	Runes needed to upgrade a weapon
Weapon Upgrade Recycling Yield	perkUpgradeRecyclingFactor	0 to 1	0.5	Share of the runes you get back when you salvage an upgraded weapon
Combat XP	experienceCombatFactor	0.25 to 2	1	XP from fighting
Mining XP	experienceMiningFactor	0 to 2	1	XP from mining. 0 turns it off
Quest & Exploration XP	experienceExplorationQuestsFactor	0.25 to 2	1	XP from exploring and quests

Enemies and bosses

Bosses have their own two settings. Enemy Damage, Enemy Health and the other enemy settings don't touch them. Image: Keen Games.

Setting	Key	Range	Default	What it does
Enemy Amount	randomSpawnerAmount	Few, Normal, Many, Extreme	Normal	How many enemies spawn. Many is x2 of Normal, Extreme x3
Simultaneous Enemy Attacks	aggroPoolAmount	Few, Normal, Many, Extreme	Normal	How many enemies may attack you at the same time
Enemy Damage	enemyDamageFactor	0.25 to 5	1	Damage enemies deal. Not bosses
Enemy Health	enemyHealthFactor	0.25 to 4	1	Enemy health. Not bosses
Enemy Stamina	enemyStaminaFactor	0.5 to 2	1	Higher takes longer to stun. Not bosses
Enemy Perception Range	enemyPerceptionRangeFactor	0.5 to 2	1	How far enemies see and hear you. Not bosses
Enemy Attack Frequency	threatBonus	0.25 to 4	1	How often enemies attack. Not bosses
Pacify Enemies	pacifyAllEnemies	true or false	false	Enemies don't attack until you attack them. Not bosses
Boss Damage	bossDamageFactor	0.2 to 5	1	Damage from boss attacks
Boss Health	bossHealthFactor	0.2 to 4	1	Boss health

Note: the game's menu and the file use different words for Enemy Amount. The file's Many shows as More in the game, and Extreme shows as Many. Write the file's word, or the server won't start.

World

Setting	Key	Range	Default	What it does
Day Duration	dayTimeDuration	2 to 60 minutes	30 minutes	Real length of the day. Written in nanoseconds
Night Duration	nightTimeDuration	2 to 60 minutes	12 minutes	Real length of the night. Written in nanoseconds
Harsh Weather Occurrences	weatherFrequency	Disabled, Rare, Normal, Often	Normal	How often storms and other harsh weather appear
Fishing Difficulty	fishingDifficulty	VeryEasy, Easy, Normal, Hard, VeryHard	Normal	How hard fish fight in the fishing minigame
Glider Turbulences	enableGliderTurbulences	true or false	true	false turns off air turbulence while gliding
Taming Startle Repercussion	tamingStartleRepercussion	KeepProgress, LoseSomeProgress, LoseAllProgress	LoseSomeProgress	Taming progress you lose when you scare an animal

Day, night and hunger are in nanoseconds

dayTimeDuration, nightTimeDuration and fromHungerToStarving are written in nanoseconds. One minute is 60000000000. Writing 30 for a 30 minute day gives you the 2 minute minimum.

Minutes	Value in the file
2	120000000000
5	300000000000
10	600000000000
12	720000000000
20	1200000000000
30	1800000000000
45	2700000000000
60	3600000000000

What the server does with a wrong value

We fed the server bad files on purpose. This is what happened:

• A number outside the range is clamped in play without a word. Boss Health 5 plays as 4, a 1 minute day plays as 2 minutes, enemy damage 9 plays as 5. The file keeps your wrong number, so it looks like the setting is broken.
• A number in quotes such as "1.5" is ignored. The server uses the default and writes it back.
• A key it doesn't know is dropped from the file.
• A wrong word (a misspelled preset, option or tag) stops the server within 2 seconds. The reason, for example Failed to parse enum 'WeatherFrequency': Invalid value 'Insane', shows only in the server's console window. Nothing is written to the log file.

Where Keen's readme is wrong

The readme that ships with the server (enshrouded_server_readme.txt, version 0.9.0.0) and Keen's online settings page disagree with the server in three places:

Readme says	The server does
The ban list key is bans	Writes and reads bannedAccounts
Diving Time minimum is 0.5	Minimum is 0.75. 0.5 plays as 0.75
Boss Health maximum is 5	Maximum is 4. 5 plays as 4

The readme also contradicts itself on Weapon Upgrade Recycling Yield: its settings list gives 0.1 as the default, while its own sample file and the server use 0.5. A file with 0.1 gives back a fifth of the runes the game normally returns.

Two sliders in the game's own host menu, Durability Scaling and World Reset Interval, have no key on a dedicated server. They can't be set there.

Server settings outside gameSettings

These sit at the top level of the file.

Key	Default	What it does
name	Enshrouded Server	The name players search for in the server list
saveDirectory	./savegame	Where the world save goes
logDirectory	./logs	Where the logs go
ip	0.0.0.0	The address to listen on. Leave it unless you know why
queryPort	15637	The port players connect to (UDP)
slotCount	16	Player slots, 1 to 16
tags	empty	Server list filters, listed below
voiceChatMode	Proximity	Proximity or Global
enableVoiceChat	false	Voice chat on or off
enableTextChat	false	Text chat on or off
gameSettingsPreset	Default	The difficulty preset, see above
userGroups	Admin, Friend, Guest, Visitor	Roles, passwords and permissions
bannedAccounts	empty	Banned players, managed from the game's Social tab

The 19 tags the server accepts: LookingForPlayers, English, German, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Chinese, Taiwanese, BaseBuilding, Exploration, Roleplay. Any other word stops the server.

Roles, the five permissions and how kicking and banning work are on Enshrouded admin commands and roles.

Changing settings on a Survival Servers server

Open Server Config in the control panel. Every setting on this page is there under the game's own name, with the server's real range, so a clamped value can't be saved.

The Enemies section of Server Config. The Default preset tag shows the value comes from the preset.

• While the preset isn't Custom, each row shows the value that preset plays, tagged with the preset's name.
• Change any number and the preset switches to Custom on its own. The other values carry over, so you start from the preset you were on.
• Words are checked before they're saved, so a typo can't stop the server.
• Apply & Restart saves and restarts the server now. Apply saves the file and it takes effect at the next restart. The server reads its settings only when it starts.

The enshrouded_server.json view shows the exact file the server gets.

Questions

Do new settings work on a world I've already played?

Yes. The server applies the file every time it starts, so a change takes effect on the next start. Nothing already built is lost.

How do I make the days longer?

Set the preset to Custom, then set dayTimeDuration up to 3600000000000 (60 minutes). Shorten the night the same way with nightTimeDuration.

How do I keep my items when I die?

Set tombstoneMode to NoTombstone on Custom, or pick the Relaxed preset, which does it for you.

How do I turn off the Shroud curse?

Set curseModifier to Easy on Custom. Relaxed does this too.

Can I have more than 16 players?

No. Keen's limit is 16 and slotCount is documented as 1 to 16.

My server stopped starting after I changed a setting. Why?

Almost always a wrong word: a misspelled preset, option or tag. Check it against the lists above, spelled exactly as shown. The error only shows in the server's console window.

My custom numbers do nothing. Why?

The preset isn't Custom. See the preset trap at the top of this page.

See also

• Enshrouded dedicated server setup guide
• Enshrouded admin commands and roles
• Enshrouded crossplay: PC, PS5 and Xbox
• Enshrouded PS5 dedicated server
• Enshrouded 1.0 server guide
• Enshrouded mods
• Keen's server gameplay settings page
• Enshrouded server hosting