Introduction
Enshrouded's server is driven by a single JSON file — enshrouded_server.json — and between that file and the four built-in difficulty presets, you can shape your world into just about anything: a cosy base-building sandbox, a brutal survival grind, or something in between.
This guide walks through the settings that actually matter, what they do, and how to change them on your LOW.MS server without breaking the file. We'll stick to keys we've verified against the real server — there's a lot of outdated and invented information floating around for this game, so if we're not sure about a value, we'll say so and point you at the official source.
Editing the config on LOW.MS
The config file lives in the root of your server directory as enshrouded_server.json. You have two ways to edit it:
Configuration Files (recommended). From your server page at control.low.ms, open Configuration Files in the sidebar. It's a proper in-browser text editor and it's by far the easiest way to tweak a few values without leaving the panel. Stop the server first, make your edits, save, then start it again.
SFTP (for power users). If you'd rather edit locally in your favourite editor, SFTP access is available — details are on the Service Settings page. Same rule applies: stop the server before you save, start it after.
One thing to be aware of: if you save malformed JSON, the server won't silently "fix" it for you. It'll refuse to start and log an error, which is annoying in the moment but honestly preferable — at least you know immediately that something's wrong. Run your file through any JSON validator if you're unsure.
Your query port and game port are already set for you by our provisioning system. Don't touch the ip or queryPort values unless you really know what you're doing; there's no situation on a LOW.MS box where changing them helps.
The basic keys
These are the ones nearly everyone will want to change at least once:
{
"name": "My Enshrouded Server",
"password": "",
"slotCount": 8,
"enableVoiceChat": true,
"voiceChatMode": "Proximity",
"enableTextChat": true
}
name— what shows up in the server browser. Make it findable.password— leave it empty for a public server, or set a string to lock it down. Share carefully.slotCount— max concurrent players, up to 16 (the game's hard cap). Set this to match the slot count you ordered.enableVoiceChat/enableTextChat— on/off switches for in-game chat.voiceChatMode—"Proximity"(fades with distance, more immersive) or"Global"(everyone hears everyone, better for small friend groups spread across the map).
saveDirectory and logDirectory both default to sensible paths (./savegame and ./logs) and there's almost never a reason to change them.
Difficulty presets
Set the overall difficulty with one key:
"gameSettingsPreset": "Default"
The valid values are exactly:
- Default — the intended experience. If you've never played, start here.
- Relaxed — gentler all round. Good for building-focused groups or players who want the exploration without the sting.
- Hard — more bite. Combat is noticeably tougher.
- Survival — the full grind. Recommended only if you already know the game well and want it to hurt.
- Custom — unlocks the
gameSettingsblock for granular control.
The exact numeric effect of each preset varies between game patches, so rather than quote figures that'll drift out of date, we'd suggest picking one that sounds right, playing for an evening, and adjusting from there.
Custom mode: what you can actually tune
Switch gameSettingsPreset to "Custom" and the gameSettings object becomes live. This is where people most often go wrong, because a lot of older guides list keys that don't exist. Here are the real categories and the real keys, grouped by what they do.
Player stats. playerHealthFactor, playerManaFactor, and playerStaminaFactor each take a multiplier between 0.25 and 4. playerBodyHeatFactor runs from 0.5 to 2 and controls how quickly cold gets to you.
Survival pressure. enableDurability and enableStarvingDebuff are straight booleans — flip them off for a softer run. foodBuffDurationFactor stretches or shrinks how long food effects last. shroudTimeFactor adjusts how long you can stay inside the Shroud before it turns on you. tombstoneMode controls what drops when you die; the values here change occasionally with patches, so if you want to change it, check the current server file for the valid strings before picking one. enableGliderTurbulences toggles glider wobble.
Enemies. enemyDamageFactor, enemyHealthFactor, and enemyStaminaFactor do what they say. enemyPerceptionRangeFactor changes how far away mobs notice you. randomSpawnerAmount and aggroPoolAmount control density and how many mobs pile on at once. Bosses have their own knobs: bossDamageFactor and bossHealthFactor. threatBonus nudges overall aggression. pacifyAllEnemies is a boolean nuke option if you want a peaceful world, and tamingStartleRepercussion controls what happens when you spook tamable creatures.
World and resources. miningDamageFactor speeds up (or slows down) node gathering. resourceDropStackAmountFactor multiplies drop quantities. plantGrowthSpeedFactor does exactly what you'd hope. factoryProductionSpeedFactor is the one for automated production stations. weatherFrequency and curseModifier round out the environmental settings.
Progression. experienceCombatFactor, experienceMiningFactor, and experienceExplorationQuestsFactor let you tune XP gain separately by activity, which is genuinely useful — you can, for example, double combat XP for a PvE-focused group without breaking exploration pacing. perkCostFactor scales perk prices, and perkUpgradeRecyclingFactor affects how much you get back when refunding.
There are also day/night length keys, but they're expressed in nanoseconds in the raw file and we'd rather not quote values we're going to have to correct later. If you want to mess with day length, grab the current defaults from the official docs (linked below) and scale from there.
A minimal custom example
Here's a deliberately small example for a group that wants combat dialled down a touch and gathering sped up — nothing exotic, just the keys we're confident about:
{
"name": "Builders of Embervale",
"password": "",
"slotCount": 8,
"enableVoiceChat": true,
"voiceChatMode": "Proximity",
"enableTextChat": true,
"gameSettingsPreset": "Custom",
"gameSettings": {
"playerHealthFactor": 1.25,
"playerStaminaFactor": 1.5,
"enemyDamageFactor": 0.75,
"enemyHealthFactor": 1.0,
"miningDamageFactor": 2.0,
"resourceDropStackAmountFactor": 2.0,
"plantGrowthSpeedFactor": 2.0,
"experienceCombatFactor": 1.25,
"enableDurability": true,
"enableStarvingDebuff": true
}
}
Drop that in, save, restart, and you've got a world that's a little more forgiving in combat and a lot quicker on the gathering treadmill. Start small — change a handful of values, see how they feel for a session, then iterate.
User groups and multiplayer permissions
Enshrouded has a real permissions system that a lot of guides skip over. The userGroups array lets you define up to ten named groups, each with its own password and its own set of toggles — things like who can edit existing base structures, who can extend a claim, who can kick players, and so on. A player joining with a group's password inherits that group's permissions.
It's more flexible than a simple admin/everyone split, and it's the right tool if you're running a semi-public server where you trust some people to build but not to kick, or vice versa. The exact permission keys are documented upstream; we'd recommend starting from the default groups the server generates on first launch and editing from there rather than building the array from scratch.
Saving, restarting, verifying
The workflow is always the same. Stop the server, edit the file (via Configuration Files in the panel or over SFTP), save, start the server, and then check. "Checking" can mean connecting in-game and seeing whether your changes took effect, or opening Log Viewer from the sidebar to confirm the server parsed the file cleanly. If the server won't come up, the log is the first place to look — it's nearly always a stray comma or missing quote.
If you're brand new to running an Enshrouded server, our getting started guide covers first-launch basics, and if something's gone sideways the troubleshooting guide is probably where you want to be next. Shopping around or curious about plans? Our Enshrouded hosting page has the current lineup.
The complete reference
Enshrouded's settings surface is bigger than any one article should try to cover, and Keen Games keep it up to date on their own support site. For the exhaustive list of every key, every valid value, and every permission flag for user groups, the authoritative source is the Keen Games Enshrouded Zendesk article "Server Gameplay Settings". If you're going deep on custom tuning, keep that tab open alongside this one.