Adjust ARK server ratesTune experience, taming and harvesting to your group

Published on September 2, 2026 · last updated on November 8, 2026

The three big multipliers

Almost every server adjusts the same three settings. All three are in the GameUserSettings.ini and work as a factor: the value 1 corresponds to the original, 2 is twice as fast.

• Experience. Determines how fast players and creatures level up. The value with the biggest influence on how the game feels in the first hours.
• Taming speed. The most popular slider of all - in the original, taming large creatures takes many hours.
• Harvest amount. How much wood, stone and fiber a hit yields. Directly affects how long building a base takes.

These three values are completely sufficient for most servers. Everything finer - breeding, engrams, experience curves - is in the Game.ini.

Proven settings

The after-work server is the classic: taming takes minutes instead of hours, but progress still feels meaningful. If you set the values too high, you take the tension out of the game - thirty-fold rates are boring after two weeks because there is nothing left to achieve.

More values worth adjusting

• Day and night length. Adjustable separately. A shorter night is the most common request in every group.
• Difficulty. Determines the maximum level of wild creatures. At the maximum, you meet much stronger animals - the more exciting path for experienced groups.
• Food and water consumption. If you want to spend less time eating, lower both slightly.
• Structure damage. Often reduced on PvE servers so that bases do not suffer from wild creatures.
• Decay of abandoned structures. Clears away structures of inactive tribes and keeps the server lean - see How much RAM does an ARK server need?

Applying changes

You edit the values in the config editor of our web interface or via WebFTP and SFTP. The order matters:

1. Stop the server - changes to a running instance are overwritten when it saves.
2. Adjust the values and save.
3. Start the server and check in the game.

A simple test for the taming rate: knock out a small creature and watch how fast the progress bar moves. For the harvest amount, one hit against a tree is enough.

How high is too high?

The most common disappointment on freshly set-up servers is not a start that is too sluggish but one that is too fast. If you multiply everything, after two weeks every animal is tamed, every base is built - and nobody logs in anymore.

A useful rule of thumb: rates should shorten the idle time, not the game. Taming is idle time when you stand next to it and wait - a high factor is worth it here. Building a base, on the other hand, is the actual content: if you turn the harvest amount up too far, you take away exactly what the group is playing for.

In practice, that means: taming speed high, experience moderate, harvest amount rather cautious. And if the group says after two weeks that things are too slow, you can still turn them up - the reverse works much worse socially.

Changing rates in the middle of a round

Technically, that is possible at any time, socially not always wise. If you raise the taming rate, you devalue the work of those who invested hours before. It has proven useful to announce larger changes and agree on them with the group - or to tie them to a fresh start of the world.

Time-limited events are an exception: double rates over the weekend are an established way in ARK communities to bring people back. Afterwards, you simply switch back.

Before any larger change to the configuration, a backup of the save is worthwhile - how to do that via WebFTP and SFTP is explained in Back up and move your save.

Frequently asked questions