Best Palworld dedicated server settings (2026)
5 min read · by the InstantNode team
Search for the "best" Palworld server settings and you'll find lists that paste the defaults back at you with adjectives attached. The truth is simpler and more useful: there is no single best configuration - there are a dozen options that genuinely change how the game feels, and the right values depend on who's playing on your server. Here's what those options actually do, and honest suggestions for tuning them.
Where the settings live
On a dedicated server, everything interesting sits in PalWorldSettings.ini, under Pal/Saved/Config/LinuxServer/ (or WindowsServer/). The file contains one long OptionSettings=(...) line; if yours is empty, copy the contents of DefaultPalWorldSettings.ini from the server root as a starting point. Settings apply on the next server restart.
The truth about "Custom" difficulty
In single-player, choosing Custom difficulty just unlocks the individual sliders - XP rate, capture rate, day length and so on. On a dedicated server there is no magic Difficulty value doing hidden work: the preset field exists, but the rate settings below are the real knobs, and setting them directly is exactly what "Custom" does under the hood. Don't hunt for a secret difficulty string; tune the rates.
The settings that actually matter
| Setting | Default | What it really does |
|---|---|---|
| ExpRate | 1.0 | XP multiplier for players and Pals. 2–3 suits groups who play a few evenings a week. |
| PalCaptureRate | 1.0 | Odds that a Pal Sphere catch succeeds. Even 1.5 noticeably cuts sphere-crafting grind. |
| PalSpawnNumRate | 1.0 | Density of wild Pal spawns. Fun to raise, but this is a real CPU cost - increase gradually. |
| DayTimeSpeedRate | 1.0 | How fast daytime passes. Most servers leave it alone. |
| NightTimeSpeedRate | 1.0 | How fast night passes. Raising it to 2–3 is the popular "shorter nights" tweak. |
| DeathPenalty | All | None, Item (drop inventory), ItemAndEquipment, or All (drop everything including Pals). |
| AutoSaveSpan | 30.0 | Seconds between autosaves. Shorter means less progress lost on a crash, at the cost of more frequent save I/O. |
| ServerPlayerMaxNum | 32 | Player cap. Set it to what your hardware and group actually need, not the maximum. |
| PalEggDefaultHatchingTime | 72.0 | Hours for the largest eggs to hatch. Lowering this to 1–10 is arguably the biggest quality-of-life change on the list. |
Other rates - EnemyDropItemRate, CollectionDropRate, WorkSpeedRate and friends - follow the same multiplier logic: 1.0 is default, higher is more generous.
Three honest starting points
Relaxed co-op
ExpRate=2.0,PalCaptureRate=1.5,PalEggDefaultHatchingTime=2.0NightTimeSpeedRate=2.5,DeathPenalty=Item
Near-vanilla
- Defaults everywhere, except
PalEggDefaultHatchingTime=24.0andNightTimeSpeedRate=1.5- the two changes almost nobody regrets.
Hardcore
DeathPenalty=All,ExpRate=0.8,PalCaptureRate=0.8- and agree on the rules before someone loses their best Pal, not after.
These are taste, not science. Change one or two values at a time so you can tell what actually improved the experience.
Guilds, bases and raids
A second tier of options shapes multiplayer life rather than moment-to-moment difficulty. GuildPlayerMaxNum (default 20) caps how many players can share one guild - worth raising if your whole server wants to build together. BaseCampWorkerMaxNum (default 15) controls how many Pals can work at each base; raising it makes bases more productive but adds simulation load, so treat it like PalSpawnNumRate: increase gradually and watch performance. Finally, bEnableInvaderEnemy toggles raids on your bases - turning it off makes for a much more peaceful building experience, which some groups prefer and others consider missing the point. Decide together.
Applying changes safely
Three rules prevent most headaches. First, stop the server before editing the ini - some setups write the file on shutdown and will silently overwrite your edits. Second, change settings in small batches, so if the server refuses to start you know which line to blame. Third, back up the save folder before any big change: rate settings are safe to adjust whenever, but there's no undo for a world that has already hatched a hundred eggs at a one-hour timer.
Performance notes nobody mentions
Palworld's server is memory-hungry, and its usage grows the longer a world runs - plan for 16 GB of RAM to be comfortable, and schedule a periodic restart (daily works well) to keep memory in check. Raising PalSpawnNumRate multiplies entity counts, which is CPU load; on a busy server it's the first setting to dial back. And whatever your AutoSaveSpan, take real backups of the save directory - autosave protects you from crashes, not from corruption or an accidentally deleted base.
Doing all this without editing a single ini
On InstantNode game servers, the panel includes a visual settings editor for Palworld - every option above with descriptions, validation and a restart button, so a typo in a 500-character ini line can't take your server down. There's also a world manager with backups and save import, which means you can bring an existing co-op world with you instead of starting over. If you're moving from another host, the same applies: upload your save through the panel and keep your progress.
The bottom line
Start near vanilla, shorten the nights and the egg timers, pick a death penalty your group actually agrees on, and give the server enough RAM. That - not a pasted block of "optimal" values - is what a well-run Palworld server looks like in 2026.