Every Palworld dedicated server keeps almost all of its gameplay settings, from difficulty to EXP rate to your server name, packed onto a single line inside PalWorldSettings.ini: one long OptionSettings=(Key=Value,Key=Value,...) struct with dozens of comma-separated pairs and no line breaks. It is technically just text, but it is genuinely unpleasant to hand-edit; one misplaced comma or quote inside that line can break the parse. On a Palworld server you host with LoafHosts, you do not have to open that file by hand. The Config Editor reads PalWorldSettings.ini, lays the settings it understands out as a clean, grouped form, validates every value before it is written, and gives you four one-click presets that retune the server for you. This guide explains exactly what the Palworld Config Editor does, where to find it, how the groups and presets work, why some keys are locked, and when a change needs a restart.
Note: The Palworld Config Editor is currently in BETA.
What the Config Editor Edits
The Config Editor is a form over one file: Pal/Saved/Config/LinuxServer/PalWorldSettings.ini, the settings file the dedicated server reads at boot. Instead of the raw OptionSettings=(Difficulty=None,DayTimeSpeedRate=1.000000,ServerName="My Server",...) line, it shows a labeled control for each setting it understands: a text box, a number field, a toggle, or a dropdown, matched to what that setting expects. Comment lines, section headers, key order, and any settings the editor does not surface are preserved byte-for-byte; a save only ever rewrites the specific keys you actually changed inside that one struct line, leaving everything else exactly as it was.
Your input is validated before anything is written. Numbers are checked against a minimum and maximum, dropdown values must be one of the game’s real options, and text fields are checked for length and for characters that would break the single-line format (a stray quote or parenthesis inside a server name, for instance, would corrupt the line, so those are rejected before they ever reach disk). If a value fails validation, the save is rejected with a message and the on-disk file is left untouched.
Note: The editor writes the real PalWorldSettings.ini file directly; there is no separate panel-only copy.
Note: Only the OptionSettings keys you actually change are rewritten; everything else in the file, including key order and any settings not exposed in the form, is left untouched.
Note: Values are validated against Palworld’s real ranges and choices before saving, so an invalid entry never reaches the file.
Opening the Config Editor
On a Palworld server, open the server in the LoafHosts panel and look in the left sidebar under the Game section, near Change Game. You will see a Config Editor item; click it to open the editor, titled “Palworld Config Editor” so you always know which server you are tuning.
The item only appears on Palworld servers that have the editor enabled. A subuser needs the config-read permission to open the editor and the config-update permission to save changes (the same permissions shared with LoafHosts’s other game config editors), so access follows your existing team permission setup.
Tip: The Config Editor sits in the sidebar Game section, near Change Game and Change Location.
Tip: If the editor reports no settings found, start the server once so Palworld can generate PalWorldSettings.ini, then reopen the editor.
How the Settings Are Grouped
The form organizes PalWorldSettings.ini into five groups so you can find a setting without scanning one giant line:
- Server: Server Name, Server Description, and Max Players (capped at 32, matching the vanilla dedicated server’s own limit).
- World: Difficulty, Death Penalty, day and night time speed multipliers, whether raid bosses (invaders) are enabled, the max number of dropped items on the ground, and caps on base camps and guild members.
- Rates: EXP rate, Pal capture rate, and Pal spawn rate, the three multipliers most groups tune first to speed up or slow down progression.
- Combat: separate attack and defense damage multipliers for Pals and for players, so you can make fights easier or harder independently of loot and capture rates.
- PvP: the PvP toggle, player-vs-player damage, and friendly fire.
Each field is a typed control matched to the setting: Difficulty and Death Penalty are dropdowns limited to Palworld’s real option lists (None/Casual/Normal/Hard for Difficulty; None/Item/ItemAndEquipment/All for Death Penalty), the rate and damage multipliers are number fields with sane minimums and maximums, and the World and PvP toggles are simple on/off switches.
Tip: Rate multipliers like EXP Rate and Pal Capture Rate accept a wide range, but very high values can make progression trivial almost immediately: start with a preset and nudge from there.
Note: Any key inside PalWorldSettings.ini that is not listed in the form still round-trips safely; it simply is not exposed as a typed field here.
One-Click Presets
If you would rather not tune a dozen fields by hand, the editor offers four presets at the top of the page:
- Vanilla: the stock dedicated-server baseline: Difficulty None, EXP Rate 1.0, Pal Capture Rate 1.0, Death Penalty All, PvP off.
- Casual PvE: a friendlier setup: Difficulty Casual, EXP Rate 2.0, Pal Capture Rate 1.5, Death Penalty Item (you only drop your held item on death, not your whole inventory), PvP off.
- Hardcore: a tougher run: Difficulty Hard, EXP Rate 0.5, Pal Capture Rate 1.0, Death Penalty All.
- PvP: turns PvP on, enables player-to-player damage, and sets Death Penalty to ItemAndEquipment for raid-style stakes.
Applying a preset writes every setting in that preset’s patch in a single save; the editor shows you what will change before it commits. None of the presets touch your world save, so applying one is safe on an existing world: your base, captures, and progress are never affected, only the gameplay dials the preset covers.
Tip: Casual PvE is the friendliest starting point for a public server; fine-tune individual rate and combat settings afterward.
Note: Presets only touch the settings listed above; server name, player cap, and everything outside their patch is left as you had it.
Locked Settings and Why They Are Read-Only
A number of keys in PalWorldSettings.ini are shown with a Locked tag and cannot be edited from this form: Public Port, Public IP, RCON Enabled, RCON Port, Admin Password, Server Password, and the REST API enabled flag and port.
These are locked because they are owned elsewhere in the panel, not because the editor is being cautious for no reason. Server Password and Admin Password are set as startup variables on the Startup tab, and the launch command builds itself around those values every time the server starts, so editing them here would be overwritten on the next boot regardless. RCON Enabled and RCON Port are locked because this egg’s console bridge (the mechanism that lets the panel’s Console tab send admin commands) depends on RCON staying on at a fixed port; turning it off in the file would silently break admin commands without any obvious error. Public Port and Public IP follow your server’s actual network allocation, which is managed by the panel, not by a config file. The lock is enforced on save, not just hidden in the form: even a raw edit that tried to change one of these keys would be rejected.
Note: Passwords, RCON, and networking keys are locked because they are managed on the Startup tab or by your server’s allocation, not by this file.
Note: The lock is enforced by the editor itself; a locked key is never written, even if you attempt to change it.
Tip: To change your Server Password or Admin Password, use the Startup tab, not the Config Editor.
When a Change Applies
Palworld reads PalWorldSettings.ini once, at boot. Saving in the Config Editor only writes the file; it does not restart the server or apply anything live. After you save, restart the server to bring your changes into play. Because a save only touches the file, you can make several edits or apply a preset, save once, and then do a single restart to bring everything in together rather than restarting after every individual change.
Note: Saving writes the file but does not apply the change; restart the server to load the new settings.
Tip: Batch your edits (or apply a preset, then fine-tune) before restarting, rather than restarting after each individual change.
Putting It Together
The Palworld Config Editor turns PalWorldSettings.ini from a single dense line you would rather not touch into a guided form: grouped fields for World, Rates, Combat, and PvP settings, four presets that get you to a sensible baseline in one save, validation that catches a bad value before it reaches disk, and clear locks on the handful of keys that are actually owned by the Startup tab or your server’s network allocation. Pick a preset to start, adjust the individual rates and combat multipliers your world cares about, save, and restart, and your Palworld server is running exactly the way you want, with the raw file preserved everywhere you did not touch it.