How to Adjust World Settings on Your Vintage Story Server

Adjusting world-related config settings allows you to customize the in-game terrain and game rules.

Changing the World Seed

The world seed controls terrain generation. Changing it requires generating a new world.

1. Stop your server
2. Open the File Manager and navigate to data/serverconfig.json
3. Find the "WorldConfiguration" section (use CTRL+F to search)
4. Add or change the "Seed" value to your desired seed. For example:

"WorldConfiguration": {
  "Seed": "myseedhere",
  ...
}

5. Delete the existing world folder (data/Saves/) to force the server to generate a new world
6. Start your server

The server generates a new world using the seed you provided. If you leave "Seed" empty or omit it, the server picks a random seed.

Changing the World Size

The worldWidth and worldLength settings control how large the world is in blocks. The default is 1024000 (1,024,000 blocks in each direction).

1. Stop your server
2. Open the File Manager and navigate to data/serverconfig.json
3. Find the "WorldConfiguration" section (use CTRL+F to search)
4. Change "worldWidth" and "worldLength" to your desired size. For example, for a 51,000-block world:

"WorldConfiguration": {
  "worldWidth": "51000",
  "worldLength": "51000",
  ...
}

5. Delete the existing world folder (data/Saves/) to force the server to generate a new world with the new size
6. Start your server

Choosing a Playstyle Preset (Homo Sapiens, Wilderness Survival)

Vintage Story ships with five preset playstyles that change starting health, respawn radius, temporal mechanics, lore content, and dozens of other defaults. The PlayStyle field in data/serverconfig.json selects which preset a brand new world uses.

PlayStyle only affects the initial world generation. Switching it on an existing world has no effect, so you need to regenerate the world to apply a new preset.

1. Stop your server
2. In the Game Control Panel sidebar, click File Manager
3. Open data/serverconfig.json
4. Find the PlayStyle line (press CTRL+F to search)
5. Change the value to the preset you want. For example, for Homo Sapiens mode:

"PlayStyle": "homosapiens",

6. Take a backup of your current world if you want to keep it
7. Delete the data/Saves/ folder to force the server to generate a new world
8. Start your server

Your server now generates a fresh world using the selected playstyle. The full settings each preset applies are listed on the Vintage Story Preset Playstyles wiki.

Reducing Hostile Creature Spawns

The creatureHostility field controls how aggressive animals are (wolves, bears, foxes), but drifters and locusts ignore it. To make a peaceful server you usually need to combine creatureHostility, the temporal rift and storm settings, and sometimes a mod.

See Disable Hostile Creatures for the full walkthrough.

Using World Generation Mods

Mods that change terrain generation (such as rivers, biomes, or terrain height mods) only affect newly generated chunks. If you install a worldgen mod on an existing world, only unexplored areas will use the new generation.

For consistent results, install your worldgen mods first, configure your world settings, then generate a fresh world. You can also create a customized world in singleplayer with your mods and settings, then upload it to your server.

Adjusting World-Related Settings (File Manager)

World settings are also able to be edited in the serverconfig.json file, which you can access in the server’s File Manager under Quick Access, or by navigating directly to the file path at data/serverconfig.json. Once you’re in the file, scroll down to the “WorldConfiguration” section. This is where world-related settings can be adjusted. Not all settings will be present in the file by default. If the setting(s) you wish to change aren’t in the file, you can copy and paste them from Vintage Story’s serverconfig.json template, which we have provided here. If the WorldConfiguration object in serverconfig.json is already populated with the settings, you don’t need to paste the template.

Replace "WorldConfiguration": null, in serverconfig.json with the template below.

    "WorldConfiguration": {
      "gameMode": "survival",
      "startingClimate": "temperate",
      "spawnRadius": "50",
      "graceTimer": "0",
      "deathPunishment": "drop",
      "droppedItemsTimer": "600",
      "seasons": "enabled",
      "playerlives": "-1",
      "lungCapacity": "40000",
      "daysPerMonth": "9",
      "harshWinters": "true",
      "blockGravity": "sandgravel",
      "caveIns": "off",
      "allowUndergroundFarming": false,
      "noLiquidSourceTransport": false,
      "bodyTemperatureResistance": "0",
      "creatureHostility": "aggressive",
      "creatureStrength": "1",
      "creatureSwimSpeed": "2",
      "playerHealthPoints": "15",
      "playerHungerSpeed": "1",
      "playerHealthRegenSpeed": "1",
      "playerMoveSpeed": "1.5",
      "foodSpoilSpeed": "1",
      "saplingGrowthRate": "1",
      "toolDurability": "1",
      "toolMiningSpeed": "1",
      "propickNodeSearchRadius": "6",
      "microblockChiseling": "stonewood",
      "allowCoordinateHud": true,
      "allowMap": true,
      "colorAccurateWorldmap": false,
      "loreContent": true,
      "clutterObtainable": "ifrepaired",
      "lightningFires": false,
      "allowTimeswitch": false,
      "temporalStability": true,
      "temporalStorms": "sometimes",
      "tempstormDurationMul": "1",
      "temporalRifts": "visible",
      "temporalGearRespawnUses": "20",
      "temporalStormSleeping": "0",
      "worldClimate": "realistic",
      "landcover": "1",
      "oceanscale": "1",
      "upheavelCommonness": "0.3",
      "geologicActivity": "0.05",
      "landformScale": "1.0",
      "worldWidth": "1024000",
      "worldLength": "1024000",
      "worldEdge": "traversable",
      "polarEquatorDistance": "100000",
      "globalTemperature": "1",
      "globalPrecipitation": "1",
      "globalForestation": "0",
      "globalDepositSpawnRate": "1",
      "surfaceCopperDeposits": "0.12",
      "surfaceTinDeposits": "0.007",
      "snowAccum": "true",
      "allowLandClaiming": true,
      "classExclusiveRecipes": true,
      "auctionHouse": true
    },

Adjusting World-Related Settings (Admin Commands)

You can adjust world settings through certain admin commands. In order to use admin commands, you need to be a server admin, which is covered in this article. Using the main /worldconfig command, you can adjust world settings. General usage is /worldconfig <name> [value], replacing name with the configuration value, and value with the value you wish to set (either a string, boolean, or number). A full list of world config commands is available on the Vintage Story wiki, but here are a some common ones:

• /worldconfig spawnRadius [number] - Sets how far players spawn in a radius from the world spawnpoint.

• /worldconfig deathPunishment [drop|keep] - Determines whether to drop your inventory upon death. Default is “drop”

• /worldconfig playerHealthPoints [1-999] - Sets the base health points for players. This setting does not affect players who have already joined. Default is 15.

We recommend trying to adjust settings with the admin commands first for ease of access. However, not all settings can be edited through commands (such as settings that require a new world to be generated). For those settings, you would need to use the file manager.

Once the setting has been adjusted, restart the server to ensure it applies. If the setting affects terrain generation, you may need to generate a new world.