Soulmask Server Configuration Guide — All Settings Explained

If you're here, I'm guessing you've already got your Soulmask server running and now you want to actually make it yours. Good – Soulmask has a surprisingly deep set of configuration options, though fair warning: the config files use Chinese pinyin key names, which takes some getting used to. This guide will walk you through every setting that matters and tell you what each one actually does.

Haven't set up your server yet? Go read the Getting Started guide first, then come back here.

How Configuration Works in Soulmask

There are four ways to configure a Soulmask server, and they each handle different things:

Startup Parameters are command-line flags set in your server's launch config. You'll find these in the Commandline Manager inside the LOW.MS Control Panel. They control fundamentals like server name, passwords, ports, and game mode. Changes require a restart.

Engine.ini lives at WS/Saved/Config/LinuxServer/Engine.ini and holds core server settings under the [Dedicated.Settings] section. This is where you'll find SteamServerName, MaxPlayers, pvp, backup, and saving values. Edit it through File Manager in the control panel.

GameXishu.json is the big one – located at /WS/Saved/GameplaySettings/GameXishu.json, this file controls all the gameplay multipliers. Resource rates, XP rates, tribe settings, PvP damage, day/night cycle – it's all here. The catch is that every key name is in Chinese pinyin. I'll translate them all below. You can edit this through File Manager or through the GM Menu.

GM Menu lets you tweak gameplay settings in real time without restarting. Press tilde (~) in-game, type gm key YourPassword (using whatever you set for -adminpsw), then click "Open coefficient settings." Changes made here persist through restarts, which is genuinely handy for dialling things in on the fly.

Startup Parameters

These go in your Commandline Manager. Here's every parameter you'll actually use:

Server Identity and Access

Network Ports

On LOW.MS, ports are assigned automatically for your allocation. You generally won't touch these unless you have a specific reason to.

• -PORT (uppercase) – Game port, UDP. Default: 8777
• -QueryPort – Steam query port, UDP. Default: 27015
• -rconport (lowercase) – RCON port, TCP. Default: 19000
• -EchoPort – Telnet port. Default: 18888
• -MULTIHOME (uppercase) – Bind to a specific IP. Set automatically.

Note the inconsistent casing – -PORT and -MULTIHOME are uppercase, but -rconport is lowercase. That's just how it is. Get them wrong and they'll silently do nothing.

Game Mode

This one's simple but easy to get wrong: you use -pvp or -pve as standalone flags. They're not key-value pairs – you don't write -pvp 1 or -pve true. You just include one or the other. Default is -pve.

Important: There is no -GameMode parameter. Dedicated servers currently only support Survival Mode. The Tribe and Warrior modes you see in singleplayer are disabled on dedicated servers by the developer (CampFire) for now.

Save and Backup Intervals

Keep the defaults unless you have a reason to change them. Setting -saving below 300 tends to cause periodic micro-stutters from the disk I/O. Going above 900 means you risk losing more progress on a crash. The 10-minute default is the sweet spot for most servers.

LOW.MS also runs separate automated cloud backups independently of the game's own backup system, so you've got an extra safety net regardless.

Other Required Flags

Your server needs -server and -forcepassthrough in the startup line. These are required flags – the server won't function properly without them. On LOW.MS these are included automatically, so don't remove them.

A password for RCON is set with -rconpsw (lowercase, not -RconPassword – that doesn't exist).

GameXishu.json – The Gameplay Settings File

This is where most of the interesting configuration lives. Every key is in Chinese pinyin, which I realize is not ideal if you don't read Chinese. Here's what each one means and what it controls.

Resource and Gathering Rates

These multipliers control how much players get from harvesting. Default for all of them is 1.0 – set higher to boost, lower to reduce.

• CaiJiDiaoLuoRatio (Collection drop rate) – General gathering from bushes, plants, etc.
• FaMuDiaoLuoRatio (Logging drop rate) – Wood from chopping trees
• CaiKuangDiaoLuoRatio (Mining drop rate) – Stone, ore, and minerals
• DongWuShiTiDiaoLuoRatio (Animal corpse drop rate) – Loot from animal carcasses
• PuTongRenDiaoLuoRatio (Normal NPC drop rate) – Drops from regular humanoid NPCs
• BossRenDiaoLuoRatio (Boss NPC drop rate) – Drops from boss encounters

For a fresh server where you want people to get established faster, bumping the CaiJi, FaMu, and CaiKuang rates to 1.5-2.0 works well. I'd leave NPC drop rates at 1.0 though – boosting those too much trivialises gear progression.

Experience Rates

If you only change one, change ExpRatio – it's the global multiplier. The others let you fine-tune specific sources. Setting ExpRatio to 2.0 and leaving the rest at 1.0 effectively doubles all XP gain across the board.

Tribe and Tribesmen Settings

Tribesmen management is central to Soulmask, so these settings matter a lot for how your server feels:

GeRenMaxZhaoMuCount (Personal recruitment limit) – Default is 6. This is how many tribesmen a single player can recruit. Bumping this to 8-10 is popular on PvE servers where people want bigger settlements.

ManRenChuZhanCount (Deployed tribesmen in combat) – Default is 3. How many tribesmen can follow you into battle at once. Raising this makes the player significantly more powerful, so be careful on PvP servers.

GongHuiMaxZhaoMuCount (Guild/tribe recruitment cap) – Default is 50. The total tribesmen a whole guild can have. Raise this for large clans, but keep in mind more AI tribesmen means more server load.

ShiWuXiaoHaoRatio (Food consumption rate) – How fast tribesmen burn through food. Default 1.0. If your players find food management tedious (and plenty do), dropping this to 0.5 is probably the single most popular QoL tweak I've seen on community servers.

ShuiXiaoHaoRatio (Water consumption rate) – Same concept, but for thirst. Usually adjusted alongside food.

XinQingZengZhang (Mood increase) – How quickly tribesman mood recovers. Higher means happier tribesmen.

XinQingJianShao (Mood decrease) – How quickly mood drops. Lower values keep them cheerful longer.

AddRenKeDuRatio (Taming speed) – Multiplier for how fast you can tame/recruit new tribesmen. Raising this to 2.0-3.0 cuts a lot of early-game tedium.

PvP and Raid Settings

These only matter if you're running a PvP server (using the -pvp startup flag):

HuXIangShangHaiKaiGuan (Mutual damage toggle) – This is essentially the PvP damage switch within GameXishu. It's a toggle, not a multiplier.

PVP_ShangHaiRatio_JinZhan (PvP melee damage multiplier) – Controls how much damage melee attacks deal in PvP. Default 1.0. Lowering it makes fights last longer, which some communities prefer.

PVP_ShangHaiRatio_YuanCheng (PvP ranged damage multiplier) – Same for ranged attacks. If ranged feels too dominant on your server, you can nerf it independently here.

GongJiJianZhuDamageRatio (Building damage multiplier) – How much damage structures take. Critical for raid balance. Setting this to 0.5 makes raids take twice as long, which discourages casual griefing.

RuQinKaiGuan (Invasion/raid toggle) – Enables or disables the raid system entirely.

RuQinBeginHour and RuQinEndHour (Raid window) – Set the hours during which raiding is allowed. This is the single most important PvP setting in my opinion. Offline raiding kills servers faster than anything else, and a raid window (say, 18 to 22) keeps things competitive without being miserable.

PlayerYouFangShangHaiKaiGuan (Friendly fire toggle) – Whether guild/tribe members can damage each other. Usually left off.

Time Settings

GameWorldTimePower (Time flow speed) – Default is 24. This controls how fast time passes in the game world. Higher values make days and nights cycle faster.

GameWorldDayTimePortion (Daytime proportion) – Default is 0.7, meaning 70% of the day/night cycle is daytime and 30% is night. If your community finds nights too long, pushing this to 0.8 gives shorter nights without making them feel trivial. Setting it to 1.0 would remove nighttime entirely, which I wouldn't recommend – it removes a core survival element.

Performance Tips

A few things that actually make a measurable difference:

Tribesman counts are the biggest performance lever. Every AI tribesman runs pathfinding and task logic every tick. A server with 20 players who each have 10 tribesmen with complex task assignments will struggle more than 30 players with 5 tribesmen each. If you're seeing tick rate drops, GeRenMaxZhaoMuCount and GongHuiMaxZhaoMuCount are the first things to look at.

Schedule daily restarts. Soulmask servers accumulate memory over time. A daily restart during quiet hours (set it up via Scheduled Tasks in the control panel) keeps things running clean. Most servers I've seen do this at 4-5 AM local time.

Don't over-aggressively save. The default -saving 600 and -backup 900 are well-chosen. Going lower causes disk I/O stutters. Going much higher risks data loss.

Monitor your RAM usage through Current Activity & Stats in the control panel. Soulmask is memory-hungry. If you're consistently above 80% utilization, it's time to look at upgrading your plan. Check what's available at low.ms/game-servers/soulmask.

RCON Setup

Soulmask supports standard RCON for remote administration. To set it up:

1. Set -rconport (default 19000) and -rconpsw in your startup parameters
2. Add allowed IPs to the [Server.SafeIP] section in your Engine.ini – RCON requires an IP whitelist, so connections from unlisted IPs will be rejected
3. Connect with any standard RCON client (mcrcon, rcon-cli, etc.)

The IP whitelist requirement is easy to miss and will leave you wondering why you can't connect. Make sure your IP is listed before you spend an hour debugging your RCON client.

Whitelist and Permissions

Soulmask's access control uses a bitmask system via the -serverpm startup parameter, combined with the AddServerPermissionList console command to add specific players. It's not a simple "enable whitelist" toggle – check the Soulmask dedicated server documentation for the specific bitmask values.

That covers every configuration option that matters for running a Soulmask server. If you run into issues after changing settings, the Troubleshooting guide covers common problems and fixes.