How to Change Your Vintage Story Server Settings

Vintage Story has two ways to change settings, and knowing which to use saves a lot of frustration. Server settings live in a JSON file, and world settings live inside the save and are changed with commands.

The rule about editing the file

Vintage Story writes its current settings to serverconfig.json when it shuts down. An edit made while the server is running is overwritten with no error. Always:

1. Stop the server.
2. Edit the file.
3. Start the server.

The file

In the panel open Files and find serverconfig.json in the server's data folder.

{
  "ServerName": "My PlayNHost Server",
  "ServerDescription": "Survival, friendly, no raiding.",
  "Password": "",
  "MaxClients": 8,
  "Port": 42420,
  "AdvertiseServer": true,
  "WhitelistMode": "Off",
  "AllowPvP": true,
  "AllowFireSpread": true,
  "AllowFallingBlocks": true,
  "PassTimeWhenEmpty": false,
  "WorldConfig": {
    "SaveFileLocation": "Saves/default.vcdbs",
    "WorldName": "My World",
    "Seed": "",
    "PlayStyle": "surviveandbuild"
  }
}

• Password empty is an open server.
• AdvertiseServer controls whether it shows in the public list.
• PassTimeWhenEmpty set to false stops crops growing and time passing while nobody is online.
• Do not change Port. It must match the port allocated to your server on the overview page.

Changing settings live

Most server settings can be changed from the panel Console without a restart:

/serverconfig maxclients 12
/serverconfig password MySecret
/serverconfig allowpvp false
/serverconfig name My New Name

These are written into the config properly, so they survive a restart. For most changes this is easier and safer than editing the file.

Slots

Your plan's slot count is applied through the MAX_CLIENTS variable on your server's Startup Settings page, reachable from the server overview. Raising MaxClients in the file alone does not add slots. Upgrade the plan in the billing area to run more players.

World settings

Rules that belong to the world rather than the server, such as creature hostility, block gravity and temporal storm frequency, are changed with:

/worldconfig creatureHostility passive
/worldconfig temporalStorms rare
/worldconfig deathPunishment keep

Run /worldconfig on its own to list what is available. These are stored in the save, so they follow the world rather than the server.