PalWorldSettings.ini Explained: Every Server Option

Once the dedicated server is up, what decides whether the world is any fun is the settings file. Palworld packs forty-odd parameters into a single line of config, ships no per-option documentation, and so most people change the EXP rate and never touch the rest — while the settings that actually break a group are the ones nobody looks at: death penalty and base camp limits.

This walks through all of them, grouped by what changing them affects. If the server isn't running yet, start with the complete setup guide.

Where the file lives and when it is read

On a Linux dedicated server:

Pal/Saved/Config/LinuxServer/PalWorldSettings.ini

Windows swaps LinuxServer for WindowsServer. The file is not created until the server has started successfully once — on a fresh install the directory is empty, which is where a lot of people conclude they installed something wrong.

The same directory holds DefaultPalWorldSettings.ini. That one is a template and the server never reads it. Editing it does nothing, silently, and it is the most common wasted hour in Palworld hosting.

What you'll find inside:

[/Script/Pal.PalGameWorldSettings]
OptionSettings=(Difficulty=None,DayTimeSpeedRate=1.000000,NightTimeSpeedRate=1.000000,ExpRate=1.000000,PalCaptureRate=1.000000,...)

It is one single line. All forty-odd options live inside one pair of parentheses, comma-separated — not one per line. Three things go wrong when editing by hand:

• A missing or doubled comma makes the whole line fail to parse, and the server silently falls back to every default. The world still loads. None of your settings applied.
• String values need double quotes (ServerName="..."); numbers and booleans don't.
• Booleans are True / False, capitalized.

And the one that catches everyone: the process reads this file only at startup. Save, then restart. Editing a running server changes nothing.

The options that change how the game feels

This group sets the pace. Getting them wrong won't break anything — it just makes progression feel off.

The two backwards ones are flagged above: lower CollectionObjectHpRate is faster, higher NightTimeSpeedRate is shorter nights.

PalEggDefaultHatchingTime is the single most worthwhile change on a multiplayer server. 72 hours was tuned for solo play; for a group that logs in on weekends, one egg spans three weeks of real time. One or two hours works, or 0.

The options that change what players can do to each other

This group costs nothing in performance but decides whether the server survives its first accident. Settle these before anyone joins — changing them later means someone has already paid for the old value.

The four DeathPenalty tiers, loosest first:

• None — drop nothing
• Item — drop inventory items, keep equipment
• ItemAndEquipment — drop both
• All — drop everything, including the Pals in your party

That last tier is where arguments come from. Fall into lava with a freshly caught rare Pal and the whole party stays behind, in a death bag sitting in high-level territory you probably can't reach again. For a group of friends, Item is the sane default; go stricter only if everyone agreed to it.

Turning off bEnableInvaderEnemy stops base raids. That is more useful than it sounds for groups that play irregularly — raids fire while nobody is online, and you come back to rubble.

The options that decide whether the server stays healthy

This group maps directly onto memory. A Palworld server's memory use grows with the world and does not come back down; a world that has been running a month eating twenty-plus GB is unremarkable, and these options are where that growth comes from.

BaseCampWorkerMaxNum is the one to be careful with. It reads like "how many Pals can work here," but every one of them runs its own behavior simulation — the cost lands on CPU, on a single core. Going from 15 to 50 across forty bases is a visible frame drop.

BaseCampMaxNumInGuild limits a guild, not a player. On a server where everyone runs a one-person guild, it is effectively the per-player base limit.

The player cap gets its own article — why 32 is not always 32 — because the number you set and the number the machine can hold are two different things.

What to change before you invite anyone in

If you'd rather not read the whole list, this is the minimum set. Everything else can be tuned later; these can't:

Save, restart, then connect with Join Multiplayer Game (Dedicated Server) and confirm the settings took. Mind the parenthetical — the title screen has a separate invite-code route that cannot reach a dedicated server.

Common questions

I edited PalWorldSettings.ini and nothing changed. Why? The three usual causes: you edited DefaultPalWorldSettings.ini (the server never reads it), you didn't restart (the file is read once at startup), or a stray comma broke the line and the server silently fell back to defaults.

Which option makes nights shorter? Raise NightTimeSpeedRate. It's a speed, so higher means that phase passes faster — the opposite of how it reads.

Which DeathPenalty tier should I pick? For a group of friends, Item: you drop inventory but keep equipment. All takes the Pals in your party with it, and that's where the arguments start.

Handing it off

Every option above is a line you edit by hand, in a file where one stray comma silently reverts all of it, followed by a restart and by remembering three months from now why you set that value.

On a dedicated Palworld server from KeepWorlds the same settings are a form, each with its own description and valid range, and the restart happens for you.

keepworlds.com/consoleRunning

Game settingsSave Settings

EXP rate2.0

Pal capture rate1.5

Max players16

Death penaltyKeep equipment

Base raid events

Palworld reads its config when the process starts, so a restart is needed after saving.