Best Palworld Server Settings for 2026

Palworld’s default server settings are conservative - designed for the broadest possible audience, not necessarily for how your group actually wants to play. Breeding takes up to 72 real-world hours on hard difficulty. XP rates slow to a crawl at higher levels. And some defaults actively cause server instability.

The good news: nearly everything is configurable through a single file. Here’s how to set up your server for the experience you actually want.

Where to find your settings

All server settings live in PalWorldSettings.ini, located at /Pal/Saved/Config/LinuxServer/ on your server. On WinterNode, open this through the File Manager or SFTP.

The file format matters. PalWorldSettings.ini must be exactly two lines: the first line is [/Script/Pal.PalGameWorldSettings], and the second line contains every setting as a single comma-separated string. Don’t add line breaks between settings - the game will ignore anything after the first break.

If your file is empty, restart the server once. WinterNode copies the defaults from DefaultPalWorldSettings.ini automatically. For the full walkthrough, see our Palworld configuration guide.

Recommended presets

These tables give you copy-paste-ready values for three common playstyles. Every setting below goes in PalWorldSettings.ini.

Casual / Relaxed

For groups that want to enjoy the world, breed Pals, and build bases without a heavy time investment.

Balanced

Moderate tweaks that smooth out the rough edges without removing the challenge. A good starting point if you’re not sure what you want.

Hardcore / Challenge

For players who want Palworld to push back. PvP optional but included here for groups that want it.

Key settings explained

XP and leveling rates

ExpRate multiplies all experience gained by players and Pals. The default is 1.000000 and it caps at 20.000000.

For small groups playing a few times a week, 1.5-2x keeps progression feeling natural without the late-game grind becoming a wall. If your group only plays on weekends, 2-3x prevents the feeling of never getting anywhere. Solo players or people running through the game a second time often go higher.

The setting affects both player and Pal XP. There’s no way to adjust them independently through this file.

Breeding speed and hatch times

PalEggDefaultHatchingTime controls how long eggs take to hatch, measured as a time multiplier. Lower values mean faster hatching. The default depends on your difficulty preset - hard difficulty uses 72.000000 (up to 72 real-world hours for rare eggs), while the standard default in DefaultPalWorldSettings.ini is 10.000000.

For most private servers, something in the 3-10 range hits a good balance. Breeding is one of Palworld’s core systems, so you probably don’t want to skip it entirely by setting this to 0, but 72 hours for a single egg is punishing on a server where you play a few hours a day.

WorkSpeedRate also indirectly affects breeding since Pals assigned to the breeding farm work faster at higher values. Bumping this to 1.5x gives a meaningful quality-of-life improvement across all base operations, not just breeding.

Base camp limits and worker settings

BaseCampMaxNum controls the total number of base camps allowed on the server (default 128). This is a server-wide limit, not per-player.

BaseCampWorkerMaxNum sets the maximum Pals working at a single base (default 15). However, there’s a well-documented bug where this setting does not work through PalWorldSettings.ini on existing worlds. If you need to change it, you’ll need to use a WorldOption.sav file instead, which overrides the INI settings. The community tool at palworldoptions.com can generate this file for you.

Death penalty options

DeathPenalty has four possible values:

• None - Keep everything on death
• Item - Drop items but keep equipment and carried Pals
• ItemAndEquipment - Drop items and equipment but keep Pals
• All - Drop everything including carried Pals

For PvE servers, Item or None is typical. For PvP, All or ItemAndEquipment adds meaningful stakes to combat encounters.

PvP settings

Two settings control player combat:

• bIsPvP=True enables PvP mode on the server
• bEnablePlayerToPlayerDamage=True enables actual damage between players

You need both set to True for PvP to work. Setting bIsPvP alone enables PvP mode but players won’t deal damage to each other without the second flag.

Day/night cycle speed

DayTimeSpeedRate and NightTimeSpeedRate control how fast time passes during day and night respectively. Default is 1.000000 for both. Higher values make time pass faster.

If your group dislikes Palworld’s long nights, set NightTimeSpeedRate to 2.000000 or higher to move through darkness quickly while keeping daytime at normal speed. The reverse works for groups that want longer, more dangerous nights.

Resource gathering rates

CollectionDropRate multiplies how many resources you get from gathering. EnemyDropItemRate does the same for enemy loot.

Boosting CollectionDropRate to 1.5-2x reduces the repetitive gathering grind without breaking progression. Going above 3x tends to make resources feel meaningless, which removes a big part of the gameplay loop.

Performance settings

Two settings directly affect server stability, and they’re worth adjusting regardless of your playstyle.

Disable invader enemies

bEnableInvaderEnemy=False disables base raid events. This is the single most impactful change for server performance. The invader spawning system has a known memory leak that causes RAM usage to climb steadily until the server crashes - sometimes within hours on smaller servers.

If you want to keep raids enabled, schedule automatic restarts every 2-4 hours through the Schedule Manager to reset memory before it becomes a problem.

Player limits and RAM

ServerPlayerMaxNum defaults to 4. You can increase this, but each additional player adds meaningful RAM overhead. As a rough guide:

These numbers assume bEnableInvaderEnemy=False. With raids enabled, expect higher usage and plan for periodic restarts.

Getting started

Palworld gives you a lot of knobs to turn, and the right settings depend entirely on your group. Start with one of the presets above, play for a session or two, and adjust from there. You can always stop the server, tweak a few values, and restart.

WinterNode Palworld servers start at $1.99/GB with no CPU limits, unmetered storage, and automatic backups every 12 hours. The panel copies your default settings automatically, so you can start tweaking right away instead of dealing with empty config files.

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