The Front Server Settings Reference

If you've been through our The Front hosting guide and your server is up, this is the next thing you'll want. The Front's settings file (TheFrontManager\ServerConfig_.ini) is a single [BaseServerConfig] block with somewhere north of a hundred keys. The good news is that the defaults are playable; the awkward news is that the file isn't very well documented officially, the key names sometimes don't match what they do, and a few of the multipliers have non-obvious second-order effects.

This is the reference we use internally when we're tuning customer servers. Grouped by what it actually does, not by where it sits in the file.

Where the file lives

The file lives at TheFrontManager\ServerConfig_.ini inside your server install directory. When you ran TheFrontManager.exe for the first time, it generated this file plus a per-host copy named ServerConfig_<HostName>.ini. The plain one is the master; the host-suffixed copy is what The Front actually reads at runtime. Edit either and the manager keeps them in sync.

On LOW.MS the path is the same. Use File Manager or SFTP on port 8822 to edit it. Always restart the server after you save; The Front doesn't hot-reload settings.

Server identity and admin access

These are the keys that decide what your server looks like in the browser and who can run admin commands.

ServerName: the public name in the Steam server list. This is what your players will search for.
HostName: an internal identifier the manager uses for the per-host config filename. The manager sets this for you; you almost never need to touch it.
ServerPassword: blank for public, set for private. Keep it ASCII and short. We've seen long unicode passwords fail silently on some clients.
RConPassword: the RCON password if you plan to use The Front's remote console. Treat it like an admin password and keep it different from the join password.
ServerAdminAccounts: a semicolon-separated list of admin Steam64 IDs. Add yourself before first launch. After editing this you need to restart the server.
WelcomeMessage: a single line shown to players on connect. A short welcome is plenty, anything more gets dismissed before anyone reads it.
ServerTags: a comma-separated list of tag IDs (the live default is 1,2,3,4) used for the server browser filters. Most groups leave this alone.

Networking

Four UDP ports, all of which need to be open inbound on your firewall plus port-forwarded if you're behind a router.

Port: the main game port. Default 7900.
BeaconPort: handshake port used during the join. Default 7901. Forgetting this one is the most common port-forwarding mistake.
QueryPort: the Steam query port the public browser hits. Default 7902. Skip this and your server runs but nobody finds it.
ShutDownServicePort: used by the manager for clean stops. Default 7903.
UseSteamSocket: 1 to route player traffic through Steam Datagram Relay, 0 to use direct UDP. The default is 1 and we'd leave it. The Steam relay handles a lot of weird NAT cases the direct path doesn't.

Player cap and queue

QueueThreshold: the soft player cap. New joiners past this number get queued. On LOW.MS this is set to match your plan's slot count at provision time, you don't usually need to change it. Self-hosters can pick whatever their hardware actually supports.

PvP, PvE, and damage modes

This is where most config conflicts happen, so it's worth being deliberate. The Front gives you a global fight-mode toggle plus a handful of damage flags.

ServerFightModeType: the top-level PvP/PvE switch. The accepted values are listed inside the manager's UI under the mode picker. We strongly recommend picking the mode through the manager once and then leaving the numeric value alone; guessing at the numbers gives you "almost PvP" in ways that break either the loot rules or the killfeed.
IsCanSelfDamage: 0 blocks self-damage from your own weapons, 1 allows it.
IsCanFriendDamage: 0 blocks teammate-on-teammate damage, 1 allows it. Group decision; arguments will be had.
IsShowBlood: cosmetic, blood effects on/off. Default 1.
HealthDyingState: enables the downed-state mechanic. Default 1.

There's a whole second tier of damage-ratio multipliers further down (GMMeleePlayerDamageRatio, GMRangedPlayerDamageRatio, and friends) for fine-tuning. All default to 1. We'll cover those in the rates section.

World and saves

SaveWorldInterval: autosave interval in seconds. Default 300 (five minutes). High-activity servers sometimes drop this to 120. Setting it much higher than 300 is asking for lost progress on a crash.
ClearSeverTime: a date string (the live default is 2023-10-12) used by the wipe scheduler. Most servers leave it on the default and never trigger a server-side wipe; this is one of those keys it's better to leave alone unless you know what flow it feeds into.
OpenAllHouseFlag: 0 enforces normal house-flag ownership, 1 opens flags up for testing. Default 0. Leave on 0 outside testing.

XP and progression rates

All multipliers, all default to 1.0. Floats are accepted, so you can do half-rate, quadruple-rate, anything.

PlayerAddExpRate: blanket multiplier on XP gained from any source.
PlayerKillAddExpRate: XP from killing things (NPCs, animals, other players).
PlayerFarmAddExpRate: XP from gathering nodes.
PlayerCraftAddExpRate: XP from crafting.
IsUnLockAllTalentAndRecipe: 1 unlocks every talent and recipe from the start. Server-wide creative-ish mode. Default 0.
GMCraftTimeRate: craft time multiplier. 0.5 halves craft times.

Survival rates

Hunger, thirst, stamina, breath, jump height, movement speed. All multipliers, all default to 1.0.

MoveSpeedRate and JumpRate change basic player movement.
PlayerMaxHealthRate, HealthRecoverRate, PlayerLandedDamageRate, GMPlayerHealthRate are the health stack.
PlayerMaxStaminaRate, StaminaRecoverRate, PlayerStaminaCostRate are stamina.
PlayerMaxHungerRate, GMHungerDecRatio, GMBodyHungerAddRate and GMFoodDragDurationRate are hunger.
MaxBodyWaterRate, GMWaterDecRatio, GMBodyWaterAddRate are thirst.
MaxBreathRate, BreathRecoverRate, PlayerBreathCostRate are breath, mostly for swimming and gas zones.
PlayerHotDefAddRate and PlayerIceDefAddRate are environmental resistance.

Most "easier survival" tweaks come from raising the recover/add rates and lowering the decrement rates. Pick two or three; don't change all of them on the same day or you'll lose track of what's actually doing what.

NPCs and monsters

The Front populates the world with two distinct NPC types: wild creatures and city NPCs. Both have their own multipliers.

NpcRespawnRatio: respawn interval multiplier for all NPCs. Higher = slower respawns.
NpcSpawnLevelRatio: tweaks the level of spawned NPCs.
NpcDisplayDistance: render distance for NPC names/labels. Default 50.
AnimalBodyStayTime and HumanBodyStayTime: how long corpses persist (seconds). Default 300 and 10 respectively.
GMNPCLootableItemRatio: loot drop rate from NPCs.
GMCityATKNPCLootItemRatio: loot rate during city attacks.

For wild NPCs (animals and monsters out in the world):

WildNPCDamageRate, WildNPCHealthRate, WildNPCSpeedRate control how dangerous they are. All default 1.

For city NPCs:

CityNPCLevelRate, CityNPCDamageRate, CityNPCHealthRate, CityNPCSpeedRate, CityNPCNumRate control how dangerous and how numerous they are. All default 1.

If you're running a chill-mode server, dropping the damage rates to 0.5 and the health rates to 0.7 gives a noticeably gentler experience without removing the threat. Push damage to 2.0 or higher and your players will start asking why everyone keeps dying to a basic raider.

Combat rates (the second tier)

A second layer of multipliers acts on damage per delivery method, not per attacker. All default 1.

GMMeleeNpcDamageRatio / GMRangedNpcDamageRatio: damage NPCs do to players, split by attack type.
GMMeleePlayerDamageRatio / GMRangedPlayerDamageRatio: damage players do to other players.
GMMeleeConstructDamageRatio / GMRangedConstructDamageRatio: damage to construction.
GMVehiclePlayerDamageRatio / GMVehicleConstructDamageRatio / GMVehicleDamageRate: vehicle damage in three flavours.
GMToolDamageRate, GMDurabilityCostRatio: tool wear.

These combine multiplicatively with the per-NPC rates above. A WildNPCDamageRate of 2 plus a GMMeleeNpcDamageRatio of 1.5 lands on triple base melee damage from wild creatures. Worth keeping a calculator open if you're tuning seriously.

Base building and construction

The Front's basebuilding has its own multiplier stack covering construction HP, repair costs, defensive structures, and so on.

GMHFTrapMaxNum: max traps per house flag. Default 0 (disabled outside specific modes).
GMHFTurretMaxNum: max turrets per house flag. Default 0.
GMMaxHouseFlagNumber: max house flags one player can place. Default 1.
GMSetGJConstructMaxNumRatio: scales the build-piece cap per flag.
GMConstructDefenseRatio, GMTrapDefenseRatio, GMTurretDefenseRatio: damage reduction on structures.
GMTrapDamageRatio, GMTurretDamageRatio: damage output of placed traps and turrets.
GMConstructMaxHealthRatio, GMConstructReturnHPRatio, GMHouseFlagRepairHealthRatio: HP and repair.
CHFDamagedByPlayer, CHFDamagedByVehicle, CHFDamagedByNpc: switches for whether constructions can be damaged by each source. 1 is can, 0 is cannot. Helpful for PvE-only servers.
GMHouseFlagExcitantTime: a cooldown around flag changes, in some unit. Default 3. Leave alone.
GMMaxRetrieveProductsRate: scales how much you get back when dismantling.

Resource gathering

GMTreeGainRate, GMBushGainRate, GMOreGainRate, GMFleshGainRate: harvest rates for wood, bushes, ore, and flesh respectively.
GMTTC_Oil_Rate, GMTTC_Ore_Rate, GMTTC_Fish_Rate: resource collector station rates.
GMWaterCollecter_Rate: water collector rate.
GMCropVegetableReapRatio, GMCropVegetableGrowRatio: crop yield and grow speed.
GMInventoryGainRate: a global inventory-gain multiplier.

If you want a faster early game, the gathering rates are where to dial things up. 1.5 to 2.0 across all of these is a common "quality of life" preset. Going much higher than 3x removes most of the gathering loop from the game.

Inventory, death, and respawn

GMBagInitGirdNum: starting inventory grid count. Default 42.
GMDeathDropMode: controls what happens to your inventory on death. The valid modes are documented in the manager UI. Pick one and stick to it; mid-wipe changes are deeply unpopular.
GMDeathInventoryLifeSpan: how long death drops persist (seconds). Default 1760, which is roughly 29 minutes.
CorpsePickAuthority: who can loot a player corpse. Default 2. The mode meanings are listed in the manager UI; this is one of those keys it's worth setting via the UI rather than guessing.
GMCanDropItem, GMCanDiscardItem: drop and discard toggles, both 1 by default.
GMDiscardBoxLifeSpan: how long discarded boxes last. Default 300 seconds.
GMRebirthBaseCD, GMRebirthExtraCD: respawn cooldowns.
GMPenaltiesMaxNum, GMPenaltiesCD: death penalty stacking and cooldown.
PlayerDeathAvatarItemDurableRate, PlayerDeatShortcutItemDurableRate: durability loss on death for equipped vs hotbar items. Defaults 0 (no durability loss on death).

Anti-cheat, chat, and cosmetic

UseACE: anti-cheat (Anti-Cheat Expert). Default true. Leave on. Disabling will lock you out of half the player base because their clients refuse to join.
IsCanChat: in-game chat on/off. Default 0 (off). Some groups feel strongly about this either way.
SensitiveWords: profanity filter. Default False.
IsShowGmTitle: whether admins show with an in-world title. Default 0 for a less obvious admin presence.
HeadNameDisplayDist_Team, HeadNameDisplayDist_Enemy: how far you can read teammate vs enemy nameplates. Defaults 200 and 20. Lowering enemy distance makes stealth more viable; raising team distance helps in chaotic team fights.
GreenHand: new-player protection toggle. Default true. Don't disable on a public server.
GMAttackCityCdRatio: cooldown multiplier on city raid timers.

What to actually change

If you've read this far and your head is spinning, the short list is: ServerName, ServerPassword, ServerAdminAccounts, ServerFightModeType, QueueThreshold, and maybe one or two gathering or XP rates if you want a faster early game. Everything else is a knob you can leave at its default until somebody on the server actually asks for a change.

Once you've made changes, save the file and restart the server. The manager doesn't hot-reload, and a few of these settings are read only at world creation, so if a change doesn't seem to take effect, try a fresh world before assuming the key is broken.