Server Questions

[GotNickD]

So my community is interested in opening an ARK server. The server will be a Weekend PvP server. So I have a few questions as I have never run an Ark server.

1. So Is there any mods or scripts that make it so pvp can only happen certain days and times?
2. What are some good perks to offer to members who have donated to the community? One of my members mentioned admins can dye the dinos. What are some more good things? (Obviously, no staff ranks for donation.)

[Arksanity]

1. While you can for example enable PvE on the weekdays, in my opinion, it makes PvP too easy, since players can easily scope out and find weakspots in a base during PvE. Some players on our server suggested boosted structure resistance/HP and turret damage during weekdays...
    
   • Auto-switching between PvP and PvE

     bAutoPvETimer=<Boolean1>
     bAutoPvEUseSystemTime=<Boolean2>
     AutoPvEStartTimeSeconds=<value1>
     AutoPvEStopTimeSeconds=<value2>

     I have never tried this, so no idea how it works. Seems easier to just stop server and change serverPVE=true during weekdays...
     More info here: https://ark.gamepedia.com/Server_Configuration
      

   • Boosted Structure Resistance & Turret vs Dino Damage

     GameUserSettings.ini:
     StructureResistanceMultiplier=0.1
     
     Game.ini:
     DinoTurretDamageMultiplier=4.0

     This is what we use. First setting increases structure resistance by 10x. While it doesn't increase the HP of structures, they take less damage. For example C4 does 3544dmg to metal structures, but with this setting C4 only does 354dmg to metal... The second setting increases turret damage by 4x, this was suggested by a player to avoid people just soaking turrets during weekdays. That having been said, everyone raided everyone during the weekend, and player population died within 3 weeks on our server, so not sure if this was the right approach. At least it was a fun 3 weeks... Anywho, running ARK server on Linux, I simply added this change to crontab, and have it stop and start to apply changes to config.
     
      

2. Donation Perks

   • We used Vote Rewards to get people to vote for the server, and in return they could exchange votes for admin-spawned dinos. Depending on your rates, this could be a possibility. We had some tribes get 10 dinos when redeeming vote rewards, only to kill them all because they had tamed dinos with better stats in the wild...

   • If you run a low rate server with slow taming, the Super Test Meat is a nice incentive to donate. It will insta-tame any creature, is part of base-game and can only be admin-spawned. https://ark.gamepedia.com/Super_Test_Meat