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What “best” means for a Sons of the Forest server
There is no single setting combination that is best for every group. A first-time co-op campaign, a construction-focused world, a small competitive server, and a public community server have different failure points. The useful question is which rules produce the right balance of pressure and convenience for your players.
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Compare a proposed setup on five axes:
- Combat pressure: enemy spawning, health, damage, armour, and aggression determine how often fights interrupt exploration and building.
- Resource and travel friction: tree regrowth and the amount of combat players face affect how quickly a group can replace materials and move through the island.
- Building protection: building destruction and related damage rules decide whether an accident or hostile encounter can erase hours of work.
- PvP risk: PvP damage must match the group’s social rules; a cooperative server should not accidentally turn friendly fire into a source of disputes.
- Administrative convenience: cheats, creative mode, immortality, save selection, and restart procedures determine how easily an operator can repair or manage the world.
The recommendations below are practical defaults. They are not developer-mandated values, and they should be recorded as part of your server’s rules so every player knows what to expect.
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Recommended baseline for a general co-op campaign
Use Normal for a straightforward shared story
Choose Normal when the group wants the game’s standard balance without negotiating every system individually. Keep enemy spawning enabled and begin with normal enemy health and normal enemy damage. This gives combat a predictable baseline while leaving room to adjust a specific mechanic later.
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Use Custom when the group has a defined preference
Select Custom when you want to tune individual systems rather than accepting one preset. Custom is appropriate when your group wants safer construction, harsher combat, a controlled PvP rule, creative building sessions, or an administrative test world. Decide the changes before players join; changing a rule after people have built or stored resources can create arguments about what counts as fair.
Enable tree regrowth when materials should be renewable
Enable tree regrowth if your group expects to cut heavily and continue using the same area. Leave it off only when the group deliberately wants a more constrained, irreversible resource environment. The choice affects construction planning and travel routes more than it affects combat difficulty.
Make the four rule decisions explicitly
Before opening the server, decide whether building destruction, realistic player damage, PvP damage, and cheats are allowed. These are social rules as much as technical settings. A server can be mechanically functional while still feeling unfair if players do not know whether a structure can be destroyed, whether realistic damage is active, or whether an administrator may use cheats to recover a stuck character.
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The game-start settings reference exposes controls for the following systems. The baseline column below is an editorial starting point; the accepted values shown by your current game build or generated configuration take precedence.
| Control | Practical baseline | When to change it |
|---|---|---|
| Enemy spawning | Enabled | Disable only for a deliberately peaceful or construction-only session. |
| Enemy health | Normal | The reference documents low, normal, and high choices; lower health reduces combat time, while higher health increases the cost of every encounter. |
| Enemy damage | Normal | The reference documents low, normal, and high choices; lower damage gives newer players more room to learn, while higher damage makes mistakes expensive. |
| Enemy armour | Choose deliberately | Raise or lower it only when the group wants a different combat-resistance profile; use the accepted value spelling in the current settings reference. |
| Enemy aggression | Choose deliberately | Adjust it when the frequency or intensity of encounters, rather than enemy durability, is the problem. |
| Tree regrowth | Enabled for renewable construction materials | Disable it for a more limited-resource challenge. |
| Building destruction | Decide with the group before play | Protect long-term bases when accidental or hostile destruction would be unacceptable. |
| Realistic player damage | Decide with the group before play | Use it only when players understand that ordinary mistakes can have more serious consequences. |
| PvP damage | Set according to the server’s social rules | Keep it aligned with whether the world is cooperative, consensual PvP, or openly competitive. |
| Creative mode | Off for a normal campaign | Enable it for a construction session or a world whose purpose is experimentation rather than progression. |
| Player immortality | Off | Use it for testing, recovery, or an explicitly non-survival event rather than ordinary progression. |
| One-hit tree chopping | Off for standard progression | Enable it when the group wants to accelerate construction and does not want logging to be a time-consuming activity. |
| Cheats | Off for ordinary play | Allow them only when the operator has explained the rule and the group accepts the effect on progression. |
Do not assume that a setting’s friendly label is also its configuration key. The console reference specifically warns that not all listed commands have been tested, so verify spelling and accepted values against the current generated file before applying a change.
Dedicated-server configuration essentials
A public dedicatedserver.cfg example illustrates the fields an operator should understand. The figures in the table are values from that example, not a promise that every build, host, or network requires them.
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| Field | Example value | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
GameMode |
Normal or Custom |
Selects the overall preset. Use Custom when per-system rules are supplied in CustomGameModeSettings. |
MaxPlayers |
8 |
Sets the player cap in the example configuration. |
SaveMode |
Choose the mode exposed by the current generated configuration | Controls how the server handles world persistence. |
SaveSlot |
Choose an intentional slot | Identifies the world that the server should load or create. |
SaveInterval |
600 seconds |
Sets the save interval used by the example. |
GamePort |
8766 |
Game traffic port in the example. |
QueryPort |
27016 |
Server-query port in the example. |
BlobSyncPort |
9700 |
Blob synchronization port in the example. |
IdleTargetFramerate |
5 |
Target frame rate while the server is idle in the example. |
ActiveTargetFramerate |
60 |
Target frame rate while the server is active in the example. |
GameSettings |
Object | Container for general game settings. |
CustomGameModeSettings |
Object | Container for custom-mode values when GameMode is Custom. |
The same example also includes logging and timestamp fields. Keep those fields when your generated file provides them; their exact names and defaults should come from the current file rather than from a copied template.
Ports and frame-rate targets are especially easy to copy without checking context. A provider may generate different values, and another service on the same machine may already use one of them. Treat the example as a map of the available fields, then compare every value with the configuration generated for your current build.
How to configure a new dedicated world safely
- Choose the world slot first. Select an intentional
SaveSlotso the server cannot create or load the wrong campaign. - Choose the load action. Use New only when creating a new world. Use Continue when the selected slot already contains the campaign you intend to host.
- Pick the top-level mode. Set
GameModetoNormalfor the baseline campaign or toCustomwhen you will supply per-system values. - Set the player cap. The public example uses
MaxPlayersset to8; change it only when your group’s intended size requires a different cap. - Set persistence deliberately. Configure
SaveMode,SaveSlot, andSaveInterval. The example uses aSaveIntervalof600seconds. - Check network fields. Review
GamePort,QueryPort, andBlobSyncPortagainst the current provider or generated file. The example values are 8766, 27016, and 9700 respectively. - Put custom values in the correct object. When
GameModeisCustom, place the per-system values inCustomGameModeSettings. Do not assume that putting them in a general object will make them active. - Stop the server before editing. Make configuration changes only while the server process is stopped, then save the file without changing its JSON structure.
- Back up before the first launch and before rule changes. Keep a copy of both the save and the configuration so you can restore the previous world or rules if a value is rejected.
- Restart and read the logs. A successful restart is not proof that every key was accepted. Inspect the startup output for rejected keys, invalid values, or a fallback to a default mode.
Use the exact key and value spelling shown by the current generated file or configuration guide. A nearly correct name can be ignored without producing the gameplay change you expected.
Choosing settings for common group types
First campaign with mixed experience levels
Use Normal, keep enemy spawning enabled, and leave enemy health and damage at normal. Enable tree regrowth if the group expects to build continuously. Keep creative mode, immortality, one-hit chopping, and cheats off so new players learn the ordinary progression. Decide building destruction and PvP damage before anyone joins, with cooperative protection as the safer default for a shared story.
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Custom mode is useful when the point of the server is building rather than survival pressure. Consider whether enemy spawning, one-hit tree chopping, creative mode, or immortality should be changed, but make the session’s purpose explicit. If the world will later become a normal campaign, use a separate save slot so accelerated building rules do not become an unexpected part of the main progression.
Experienced group seeking more pressure
Keep the server in Custom mode and alter one combat axis at a time. Enemy health and damage have documented low, normal, and high choices; changing both at once makes it harder to identify which adjustment improved the experience. If encounters are too frequent rather than too durable, review aggression instead of simply increasing health.
Small private PvP group
Set PvP damage only after the group has agreed whether combat is always allowed, consent-based, or forbidden. Also decide whether realistic player damage and building destruction are part of the same ruleset. Record the decision in the server description or community rules; a technically enabled option that players did not expect is a governance problem, not a configuration success.
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Public or rotating community server
Favor predictable settings and administrative recoverability. Normal mode, explicit save-slot management, regular backups, and cheats reserved for documented recovery are easier to explain than a large collection of hidden exceptions. If you choose Custom, publish the changed systems rather than listing only the word “custom.”
Using console commands for temporary changes
The console reference documents a setgamesetupsetting command for changing game-setup settings without a save editor or direct text-file editing. In general form, the command takes a setting and a value:
setgamesetupsetting <setting> <value>Use the exact setting name and accepted value from the current reference. The command documentation says that not all commands have been tested, so treat console changes as reversible experiments: note the original value, change one setting, observe the result, and restore the original if the game behaves unexpectedly. A console change is not a substitute for a backed-up server configuration when you want the rule to persist across restarts.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.“These are the settings that you can change with a custom game, you can use these commands to change these settings without the use of a save editor or editing the text files. Not all of these have been tested.” — Sons of the Forest Wiki contributors, Console Commands.
Change management: preventing lost worlds and inconsistent rules
Separate creation from continuation
The New/Continue distinction is operationally important. New creates a world; Continue opens an existing save. Confirm the slot and action together before starting the process, especially after moving a server or changing hosting providers.
Change one category at a time
When diagnosing an unsatisfying world, change combat, resource, building, or administrative rules as separate batches. If enemy damage, aggression, and PvP damage all change in one restart, players cannot tell which rule caused the new experience and the operator cannot easily roll back.
Keep a human-readable rule sheet
Record the selected mode, the custom controls you changed, the save slot, and the date of each change. This is particularly valuable when several administrators edit the same server or when a temporary creative session must be restored to normal survival rules.
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Verify after every restart
Check the logs for rejected keys or values, then have one player confirm the gameplay rule in-world. A file can remain syntactically valid while a misspelled key is ignored or a value falls back to a default.
Troubleshooting common configuration mistakes
The server starts, but Custom settings have no effect
Confirm that GameMode is actually Custom and that the values are inside CustomGameModeSettings. Recheck capitalization and spelling against the generated file, restart with the server stopped before editing, and inspect the logs for a rejected key.
The wrong world loads
Stop the server and verify SaveSlot before choosing Continue. If you intended to create a separate test world, use New with a deliberately different slot rather than overwriting the campaign used by the group.
A setting appears to revert after restart
Determine whether the change was made only through the console. Console changes may be temporary; put the intended persistent value in the appropriate configuration object, then restart and check the logs.
Players report a rule they did not expect
Review building destruction, realistic player damage, PvP damage, cheats, creative mode, immortality, and one-hit tree chopping as a group. These controls can change the social contract even when the server is technically operating normally. Publish the active rules and keep a dated copy so an administrator can identify when the behavior changed.
A copied port or performance value causes trouble
Do not assume that the public example’s ports or frame-rate targets are universal. Compare the generated file and provider documentation for the current build, check for conflicts with other services, and retain the values that your environment actually supports.
Operator checklist
- Normal mode selected for an ordinary shared campaign, or Custom selected for a documented reason.
- Enemy spawning, enemy health, and enemy damage reviewed rather than left to an unknown inherited value.
- Tree regrowth chosen intentionally.
- Building destruction, realistic player damage, PvP damage, and cheats agreed before players join.
- Creative mode, immortality, and one-hit tree chopping reserved for a stated purpose.
SaveSlotconfirmed; New and Continue used for their intended purposes.- Save and configuration backups made before edits.
- Custom values placed under
CustomGameModeSettingswhenGameModeisCustom. - Exact key and value spelling copied from the current generated configuration.
- Server stopped before editing and restarted after saving.
- Logs checked for rejected keys or values.
- Example ports, save interval, and frame-rate targets verified against the current build and host.
Final recommendation
Start with Normal, normal enemy health and damage, enemy spawning enabled, and tree regrowth enabled when the group wants renewable materials. Move to Custom only for a specific, communicated goal, put its values in CustomGameModeSettings, and change one system at a time. Treat the dedicated-server example’s eight-player cap, 600-second save interval, ports 8766/27016/9700, and 5/60 idle-active frame-rate targets as reference values to verify—not settings to copy blindly. Back up first, restart cleanly, and let the logs confirm that the server accepted what you wrote.
Quick Recap
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