ARK: Survival Evolved — Beginner's Guide to Running a Server

ARK has 11 official maps — here's which to pick: • The Island — the original. Great for beginners. All creatures, all bosses, accessible everything. • Fjordur — the best free map. Beautiful, huge, multiple biomes and unique creatures. Recommended for new servers. • Ragnarok — fan favourite, huge open world, mix of biomes. Great for exploring. • The Center — good PvP map, lots of floating islands. • Aberration — underground-only. Unique creatures, no flyers. For experienced groups. • Genesis 1 & 2 — mission-based content. More structured gameplay. Recommendation: Start with Fjordur or The Island. You can change maps later without losing character progress (only the world resets).

Official ARK rates are notoriously slow. Most private servers multiply them: • TamingSpeedMultiplier: 5.0–10.0 (official is 1.0 — a Rex takes 3+ hours vanilla) • XPMultiplier: 3.0–5.0 (levels come faster, less grinding) • HarvestAmountMultiplier: 3.0–5.0 (gather 3–5x resources per hit) • MatingIntervalMultiplier: 0.1 (10x faster breeding cycles) • EggHatchSpeedMultiplier: 10.0 (eggs hatch 10x faster) • BabyMatureSpeedMultiplier: 10.0–20.0 (babies grow up faster) All of these are available as form fields in the CoalHost panel under Game Settings.

Tribe settings affect how players group up and share progression: • MaxTribeSizeMultiplier: increase for larger tribes (default is 70 members) • TribeWarCooldown: time between tribal wars (relevant for PvP servers) • PreventTribeAlliances: set to true on competitive PvP servers • AllowTribeWarCanceling: whether tribes can cancel wars For a casual PvE server with friends, the defaults are fine. For a PvP server, reduce max tribe size (6–10 players) to keep competition balanced.

ARK's Steam Workshop has thousands of mods. To install: 1. Find a mod on the Steam Workshop, copy its ID from the URL 2. In the CoalHost panel → Mods tab → add the Workshop ID 3. Restart the server — mods download automatically Popular mods to consider: • Structures Plus (S+) — massively improved building system (most popular mod ever) • Dino Storage v2 — store tamed dinos in a soul ball, saves server RAM • Awesome Teleporters — teleport pads for big maps • Platforms Plus — better platform saddles and building • Upgrade Station — upgrade item quality without crafting new gear Add mods in the order you want them loaded — S+ first, then others.

As a server admin, these are the commands you'll use most: • `enablecheats <password>` — enter admin mode • `cheat fly` — fly mode for exploring • `cheat ghost` — no-clip through terrain • `cheat teleport` — teleport to where you're looking • `cheat giveitemnum <id> <qty> <quality> 0` — spawn items • `cheat destroywilddinos` — wipe all wild dinos (use after adding mods) • `cheat setplayerpos <x> <y> <z>` — move to coordinates • `admincheat ban <playername>` — ban a player • `showmyadminmanager` — open the in-game admin panel Set your admin password in Server Settings → ServerAdminPassword.

ARK saves can corrupt, especially with mods. Protect yourself: Auto backups: Enable in the CoalHost panel — set hourly snapshots so you can rewind 1–24 hours if a save corrupts. Auto restart: Schedule a daily restart at a low-traffic time (e.g. 4 AM). ARK's memory use grows over time and a restart keeps performance smooth. Manual save command: `saveworld` — run this before changing settings or adding mods.