Installing Mods on Your ARK: Survival Evolved Server

ARK: Survival Evolved has one of the busiest modding communities in survival sandbox land. Thousands of mods can polish vanilla mechanics, rebalance the early game, or turn dinosaurs into spacefaring chaos. The catch is that loading mods onto a dedicated server is a bit fiddlier than clicking Subscribe in Steam. The walkthrough below breaks the process into clear stages so you can get a modded server running without guesswork.

Choose your mods on Steam Workshop

The Steam Workshop is the cleanest place to browse what is available. Open Steam, select ARK: Survival Evolved, and click the Workshop tab on the game page. From there you can filter by category, rating, or release date.

When something catches your eye, open the listing and hit the green Subscribe button. Steam will pull the files in the background. As a working example, the screenshots below use Stargate Worlds v3.0 by Loop.

Once Steam reports the download is finished, launch ARK and wait for the notification in the bottom-right corner confirming the mod is being installed. After that, start a Host/Local game, find the mod under Available Mods, and activate it with the arrow button to confirm it actually works in-game.

Locate the mod files on your PC

Before touching the server, you need the local copies of each mod. Steam stores them inside the game's install folder.

1. Right-click ARK: Survival Evolved in your Steam library.
2. Choose Manage, then Browse local files. A file explorer window opens.
3. Open `ShooterGame/Content/Mods`.
4. Inside you will see one `.mod` file and a folder named after a long number.
5. Write that number down. It is the mod ID and you will need it later. In this example the ID is `609380111`.

Upload the mods to your server

With the mod ID in hand, the files can move across to the server.

1. Open your HolyHosting control panel and stop the server with the red Stop button.
2. Open the file manager (or connect via FTP) and sign in with your panel password.
3. The directory structure mirrors the one on your PC. Navigate to `ShooterGame/Content/Mods`.
4. Use the Upload option in the side menu and upload both the numbered folder and the matching `.mod` file.

If either the folder or the `.mod` file is missing, the server will refuse to load the mod, so double check before moving on.

Edit GameUserSettings.ini

Configuring the `.ini` file is the part that trips most people up, but it is short.

1. Back in the file manager, open `ShooterGame/Saved/Config/LinuxServer/`.
2. Click GameUserSettings.ini to open it in the web editor.
3. Scroll to the bottom of the `[ServerSettings]` block and add a new line: `ActiveMods=`.
4. Paste the mod ID after the equals sign. For this example: `ActiveMods=609380111`.
5. To stack multiple mods, separate the IDs with commas: `ActiveMods=609380111,538986229,1404697612`.
6. Hit Save at the top of the page, then start the server back up so it can load the mods.

The final result should look something like this.

Troubleshooting

Mod mismatch error when joining. Steam silently updates mods on your PC, so the client and server can drift out of sync. Re-upload the freshest version of every changed mod from your local Steam folder to the server. If that does not clear the error, delete the affected mod folder on your PC, let Steam regenerate it, then try connecting again.

Mods refuse to load. Confirm you uploaded both the numbered folder and the `.mod` file for every mod, not just one of the two. Then re-check `GameUserSettings.ini` and make sure each mod ID is present, comma-separated, and sitting inside the `[ServerSettings]` block.

Wrapping up

A well-curated mod list can completely change how ARK feels, whether the goal is quality-of-life tweaks, fresh creatures, or a full-blown total conversion. Take your time, mix and match a few options, and reload until you find a setup your players enjoy. The configuration takes a few minutes the first time and roughly thirty seconds every time after that.