Tuning Dinosaur Spawn Rates on Your ARK: Survival Evolved Server

After enough hours on an ARK: Survival Evolved server, every admin runs into the same complaint: there are either too many dinos cluttering the map or so few that exploring feels lonely. Out of the box, ARK's defaults rarely match the rhythm a particular community wants, and the in-game options do not expose the knobs you actually need.

The good news is that two config files do all the heavy lifting. One controls overall density, the other lets you single out a species. This guide walks through both, using the HolyHosting control panel as the editing surface.

Editing Files Safely

Before touching any value, stop the server. ARK overwrites both config files on shutdown, so any change made while the world is still running is likely to vanish the next time the process exits. From the panel:

1. Open your server in the dashboard and hit Stop.
2. Wait until the status shows the process is fully offline.
3. Go to the Config Files entry in the side menu.

From there you have access to both `GameUserSettings.ini` and `Game.ini`, which are the only two files we will touch.

Scaling Every Dino at Once

If you just want more (or fewer) creatures roaming the map without caring which ones, `GameUserSettings.ini` is the fastest route. A single multiplier under `[ServerSettings]` rescales the entire spawn table.

1. Open GameUserSettings.ini in the web editor.
2. Scroll to the `[ServerSettings]` block at the top of the file.
3. Look for `DinoCountMultiplier`. If it is not there, add it on its own line inside that block.
4. Set the value. `1.0` is vanilla, `2.0` doubles spawns, `0.5` halves them. Anything above roughly `3.0` starts to hurt performance, so push it carefully.
5. Save the file and start the server.

Give the map a few minutes after boot to repopulate before judging the result. The first wander after a restart is rarely representative.

Targeting a Specific Species

Maybe the global multiplier is fine and you just want more Megalodons because finding one currently feels like a part-time job. That is where `Game.ini` comes in. Instead of a single multiplier, you write a per-creature directive.

1. Open Game.ini in the web editor.
2. If the file is empty (or missing the section header), add this on the first line:

`[/script/shootergame.shootergamemode]`

1. On the next line, drop in your directive. For the Megalodon example:

`DinoSpawnWeightMultipliers=(DinoNameTag="Megalodon_Character_BP_C",SpawnWeightMultiplier=1.5,OverrideSpawnLimitPercentage=true,SpawnLimitPercentage=2.0)`

1. Save the file and start the server.

You can stack as many of those lines as you want, one per species, as long as each has a valid `DinoNameTag`.

What Each Field Actually Does

The directive looks dense, but every chunk has a single job.

• `DinoNameTag` is the internal ID of the creature. Megalodon is `Megalodon_Character_BP_C`. Use the Entity ID column on the ARK wiki to look up other species, and copy it exactly. A typo here silently breaks the line and you will not get a warning in-game.
• `SpawnWeightMultiplier` is how often that creature appears compared to everything else in its spawn pool. Bumping a Megalodon to `1.5` means it shows up 50 percent more often than its baseline competitors.
• `OverrideSpawnLimitPercentage` is the switch that decides whether the next field even applies. Set it to `true` if you also want to raise the population cap, or `false` if you only care about spawn frequency.
• `SpawnLimitPercentage` is the cap itself. ARK enforces a maximum population for each species so the world does not collapse under a Trike herd. Bumping this to `2.0` doubles that ceiling.

Weight and limit are independent: a high weight with a low cap means lots of creatures try to spawn but few succeed, which usually produces uneven clusters.

When Changes Do Not Stick

If you boot the server and nothing changed, the culprit is almost always one of three things:

• A typo in `DinoNameTag`. Capitalisation and the `_Character_BP_C` suffix matter.
• A missing or duplicated section header in `Game.ini`. Only one `[/script/shootergame.shootergamemode]` line should exist.
• The server was edited while still running, so ARK overwrote the file on shutdown. Stop first, edit second, save, then start.

Re-check the file from the panel after the restart. If your line is gone, the server did not exit cleanly before you saved.