ARK: Survival Ascended Server

ARK: Survival Ascended is an Unreal Engine 5 remake of ARK: Survival Evolved. Dedicated servers are resource-intensive but give you full control over maps, mods, and rates. This guide assumes you have already installed SteamCMD.

Requirements

A VPS running Ubuntu 22.04+ or Debian 12+
SteamCMD installed with a steam user
At least 16 GB RAM (32 GB recommended for large maps)
At least 50 GB free disk space
A multi-core CPU (4+ cores recommended)

1. Install the Server

su - steam
cd ~/steamcmd
./steamcmd.sh +force_install_dir ~/ark +login anonymous +app_update 2430930 validate +quit

This download is large (20+ GB). Be patient.

2. Configure the Server

Create a start script:

nano ~/ark/start.sh

#!/bin/bash
cd /home/steam/ark/ShooterGame/Binaries/Linux

./ArkAscendedServer TheIsland_WP \
  -port=7777 \
  -QueryPort=27015 \
  -servergamelog \
  -ServerRCONOutputTribeLogs \
  -nosteamclient \
  -game \
  -server \
  -log \
  ?SessionName="My Sitequest ARK Server" \
  ?MaxPlayers=70 \
  ?ServerPassword= \
  ?ServerAdminPassword=YOUR_ADMIN_PASSWORD \
  ?RCONEnabled=True \
  ?RCONPort=27020

chmod +x ~/ark/start.sh

Replace TheIsland_WP with another map name if desired (e.g., ScorchedEarth_WP, Aberration_WP).

3. Tune Game Settings

Edit ~/ark/ShooterGame/Saved/Config/LinuxServer/GameUserSettings.ini:

[ServerSettings]
XPMultiplier=1.0
TamingSpeedMultiplier=1.0
HarvestAmountMultiplier=1.0
DifficultyOffset=0.5

4. Create a systemd Service

nano /etc/systemd/system/ark.service

[Unit]
Description=ARK Survival Ascended Server
After=network.target

[Service]
User=steam
WorkingDirectory=/home/steam/ark
ExecStart=/home/steam/ark/start.sh
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=30
LimitNOFILE=65536

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable ark
systemctl start ark

5. Open Firewall Ports

Open the following ports in the Sitequest firewall:

Port	Protocol	Purpose
7777	UDP	Game traffic
27015	UDP	Steam query
27020	TCP	RCON (optional)

With ufw:

ufw allow 7777/udp
ufw allow 27015/udp
ufw allow 27020/tcp

6. Connect

In ARK, open the server browser and search by name, or use the Steam server browser to add your server directly via YOUR_SERVER_IP:27015.

Next Steps

Adjust taming, harvesting, and XP rates in GameUserSettings.ini
Install mods via ActiveMods in the server configuration
Set up RCON for remote administration
Configure automatic world saves and backups