The five presets
Keen Games describes each preset in a sentence. Default sets every value to its default and continues how Enshrouded was configured up to update 0.7.3.0, and Keen recommends it for first-time players. Relaxed reduces the number of enemies and gives players more resources and loot, aimed at groups who mostly want to build. Hard increases the number of enemies and makes them more aggressive. Survival adds extra survival mechanics on top of more aggressive enemies.
The fifth value, Custom, is the switch for everything else. Keen's wording is that only when Custom is selected can the long list of individual settings be tweaked. With any other preset the gameSettings block in the file is still there, and it is simply not what the server plays by.
Keen describes the presets in words rather than numbers, so if you want Hard with one thing changed, set Custom and enter the values yourself.
- Default: all values at default, recommended for first-time players
- Relaxed: fewer enemies, more resources and loot
- Hard: more enemies, and more aggressive ones
- Survival: more aggressive enemies plus extra survival mechanics
- Custom: the only preset that uses the values in gameSettings
Switching to Custom without breaking the file
Set "gameSettingsPreset": "Custom" and then change values inside the "gameSettings" block below it. The file is JSON, so every value except the last in a block needs a comma after it, text values sit in double quotes, and true and false do not.
Keen documents how the server treats bad input. A number above or below the allowed range is not an error: the server uses the maximum or minimum instead. Invalid text is different. The server does not boot, and the command window names the value that was entered incorrectly. If the file itself has gone wrong after an update, Keen says you can delete it and a fresh one is created on the next start.
Before you delete it, copy out what you would lose: the server name, the user group passwords and any bans. A fresh file comes with new group passwords, and our Enshrouded 1.0 setup guide explains the groups and how players use their passwords.
- Stop the server before editing, and start it again afterwards
- "gameSettingsPreset": "Custom", or nothing in gameSettings applies
- Out of range numbers are clamped to the minimum or maximum
- Invalid text stops the server from booting, and the window names the bad value
- Deleting the file regenerates it, with new passwords, so copy yours first
Player and survival settings
Most player settings are factors, where 1 is the default and the game shows the factor as a percentage. Health, mana and stamina each scale from 0.25 to 4. Body heat decides how long a player lasts in very cold areas, and shroud time how long they can stay inside the Shroud.
Hunger is off by default. enableStarvingDebuff turns on hunger and starvation, in which a player who goes without food or drink loses health periodically until they die. fromHungerToStarving then sets how long the hungry state lasts before starvation, between 5 and 20 minutes. Like every time value in this file, it is written in nanoseconds, so the default 600000000000 is 10 minutes.
tombstoneMode decides what a death costs. The default, AddBackpackMaterials, means players lose only materials, which wait in a tombstone. Keen's description says players can either keep or lose all items when they die, through the other two options, Everything and NoTombstone. Try your choice with a test death before the group relies on it.
- playerHealthFactor, playerManaFactor, playerStaminaFactor: 0.25 to 4
- playerBodyHeatFactor: 0.5 low, 1 default, 1.5 high, 2 maximum
- playerDivingTimeFactor: 0.5 to 2, the oxygen available underwater
- shroudTimeFactor: 0.5 to 2, the time a player can stay in the Shroud
- foodBuffDurationFactor: 0.5 to 2
- enableDurability: false means weapons no longer break
- enableStarvingDebuff: true turns hunger and starvation on
- tombstoneMode: AddBackpackMaterials, Everything or NoTombstone
Enemies and bosses
Enemy settings come in two kinds. Factors scale damage, health, stamina, how far enemies notice players and how often they attack, and they exclude bosses. Bosses have their own two factors for damage and health, each from 0.2 to 5.
Two settings take words instead of numbers. randomSpawnerAmount controls how many enemies there are in the world, and aggroPoolAmount how many may attack at the same time, each Few, Normal, Many or Extreme. pacifyAllEnemies set to true means enemies do not attack until they are attacked, bosses excepted.
The 1.0 release changed two things here. Keen added an option called Automatic to the setting that controls how many enemies spawn in each encounter, which scales the count to the size of the party, counting every player actively playing nearby. It also reworked the values of the enemy damage slider to reflect the real damage increase in combat better. Keen's settings article still shows a sample file from version 0.9.0.0, so after updating, compare your file with a freshly generated one to see the 1.0 options your server writes.
- enemyDamageFactor: 0.25 to 5; enemyHealthFactor: 0.25 to 4
- enemyStaminaFactor: 0.5 to 2, higher means enemies take longer to stun
- enemyPerceptionRangeFactor: 0.5 to 2
- threatBonus: 0.25 to 4, how often enemies attack
- bossDamageFactor and bossHealthFactor: 0.2 to 5
- randomSpawnerAmount and aggroPoolAmount: Few, Normal, Many or Extreme
- pacifyAllEnemies: true keeps non-boss enemies passive until attacked
- curseModifier: Easy turns the Shroud curse off, Hard doubles its chance
Day length, resources and progression
Day and night lengths are in nanoseconds, which is why they look alarming. The default day, 1800000000000, is 30 minutes, and the default night, 720000000000, is 12 minutes. Both accept anything from 2 minutes, 120000000000, to 60 minutes, 3600000000000. Multiply the minutes you want by 60000000000 to get the value.
The resource settings are the ones building groups change first. miningDamageFactor scales mining damage, which means more terraforming and more resources per hit. resourceDropStackAmountFactor scales the materials in each stack from chests and enemies, plantGrowthSpeedFactor speeds up farming, and factoryProductionSpeedFactor scales workshop production times.
Progression has its own factors: combat, mining and exploration experience, the Rune cost of upgrading weapons, and how many Runes come back when an upgraded weapon is salvaged, from 0 to 1. weatherFrequency sets how often weather appears, from Disabled to Often, and fishingDifficulty how strong fish are in the fishing minigame.
- dayTimeDuration and nightTimeDuration: 120000000000 to 3600000000000 nanoseconds
- miningDamageFactor: 0.5 to 2; resourceDropStackAmountFactor: 0.25 to 2
- plantGrowthSpeedFactor and factoryProductionSpeedFactor: 0.25 to 2
- experienceCombatFactor and experienceExplorationQuestsFactor: 0.25 to 2
- experienceMiningFactor: 0 to 2; perkCostFactor: 0.25 to 2
- weatherFrequency: Disabled, Rare, Normal or Often
- fishingDifficulty: VeryEasy, Easy, Normal, Hard or VeryHard
- tamingStartleRepercussion: KeepProgress, LoseSomeProgress or LoseAllProgress
Player slots and the rest of the file
Difficulty is not the only thing that decides how a server feels. slotCount accepts 1 to 16 players, and Keen notes that each slot adds to the load on the server, so lowering the maximum helps when CPU or memory is the bottleneck. Voice and text chat are both off in a fresh file: enableVoiceChat and enableTextChat switch them on, and voiceChatMode chooses Proximity or Global.
Keen's current sample also has a Visitor group alongside Admin, Friend and Guest, and a canEditWorld permission on each group. Check those against what you want each password to allow before you share it.
If you are bringing a world from your own PC, moving an Enshrouded world to a dedicated server covers the save files, and the Enshrouded game page shows what a hosted server with full access to this file includes.