Question 1

Host co-op or a dedicated server with friends?

Accepted Answer

Few players, short term: host co-op; long term, many players or offline uptime: dedicated. Host co-op costs nothing to set up, but the world follows the host: nobody plays when the host is offline, and the host's connection is everyone's latency. A dedicated server runs 24/7, allows more players and exposes every world parameter, at the cost of self-hosting or renting. The single test: should this world stay alive when one particular person is away? If yes, go dedicated.

Question 2

What's the minimal path to upgrade a private server to 1.0?

Accepted Answer

Back up → stop → upgrade → verify settings → validate then reopen, keeping a rollback point throughout. Five steps: ① full backup of world files, player files and PalWorldSettings.ini before stopping; ② actually stop the server before touching anything; ③ upgrade the server build; ④ verify settings line by line — especially the Global Palbox export/import toggles, CrossplayPlatforms and rate multipliers that upgrades love to reset; ⑤ walk through it yourself (loads, character, base, Pals all intact) before reopening to players. Keep the backup until stability is confirmed — rollback stays one copy away.

Question 3

Can I use the generated ini directly?

Accepted Answer

Treat it as a draft: verify line by line before production, especially the toggles. The generator outputs a PalWorldSettings.ini draft from your choices. Numeric parameters (rates, caps) copy over safely; what needs human review are the toggles and platform fields — Global Palbox export/import, CrossplayPlatforms, PvP switches — where a wrong value hits every player's assets or connectivity. Dry-run in a test environment before production.

Question 4

Server memory keeps climbing over long uptimes — now what?

Accepted Answer

Monitor, back up, rule out mods, then schedule restarts around peak hours. Triage order: put monitoring on first to see whether growth is a linear leak or tracks player count; A/B against a clean, mod-free server build — server-side mods are the most common leak source; once confirmed as engine-level accumulation, schedule restarts in off-peak windows. The script's hard rule: auto-backup before every restart, with an in-game broadcast beforehand.

Question 5

How do I carry a world across accounts or drives?

Accepted Answer

Test loading and character mapping on a copy in isolation before switching for real. The iron rule: only ever operate on a copy. Duplicate the world folder into an isolated environment (another machine or path) and test-load it, focusing on player-file-to-character mapping — after an account change the player ID changes and old characters may not attach. Only after the copy checks out do you switch production over; the original stays untouched throughout, so failure costs nothing.

Question 6

Anything to know about hardcore / random modes?

Accepted Answer

Random-spawn mode drops pre-1.0 placement data; agree on hardcore death rules with the whole group first. Officially stated: to reflect the 1.0 habitat rebalance, random Pal spawn mode no longer carries placement data from v0.7.3 and earlier — old random worlds will see different spawn distributions by design, not corruption. Hardcore and all multipliers live in world settings: get the whole group's informed consent on hardcore's death penalties (permanent character or Pal loss) before opening, so the first wipe doesn't end the server; the settings generator drafts private-server configs fastest.

Multiplayer & Servers FAQ

Questions in this guide