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Changing Engram Points Earned Per Level on Your ARK Server

"Engrams" are the unlockable recipes for crafting in ARK: Survival Evolved. Every time a player goes up a level, they will receive a certain number of engram points to purchase and unlock new engrams.

On a multiplayer server, players will only receive a limited number of engram points. 4441 engram points by level 140 (with the new Genesis: Part 1 DLC, the max level is actually 155 now, if you owned and played all the other DLC's too).

It would require in excess of 7000 points to unlock all the "vanilla" engrams in the base game. If you want a single character to have access to the recipes from the different DLC's, that total is over 8600 engram points (and that doesn't include the new engrams from Genesis: Part 1 either).

Remember, the default amount you'll get is only 4441, so on a multiplayer server no single player will have access to all engram recipes. This is done deliberately by the game developers to foster teamwork and cooperation. Players can spend their points on different items so that they collectively have access to more recipes (with some necessary duplication though, like for weapons and tools). One player might know how to make lots of specialized weapons and equipment, another player might know the engrams for building components like walls and floors.

This can lead to issues with coordinating players, though. "Sorry, we can't expand the base today, the only guy who knows how to make more walls and floors can't play today.” Oof.

Some Workarounds to this Problem

  • There are ways to reset your learned engrams (basically a respec), but that method is fairly costly in materials if you're just starting out, and can only be used once every 24 hours now.

  • Some recipes aren't used frequently, like the engrams for dino saddles. You can respec, unlock the engram and make the items, and then respec again later on to put your character back to "normal.” But, this leads to situations where 5 minutes after you reverse the respec, you need more of that item, and you need to repeat it. This can get pretty tedious after a while.

  • Depending on the map you're playing on, there can be blueprints that you get from the supply beacons and orbital drops that will allow you to build recipes, as long as you still own the blueprint. But, that heavily relies on RNG. Lots and lots of RNG. If there's PVP raiding on your server, other players can steal these blueprints too. Ouch.

Or Just Change the Amount of Points you Earn Per Level

If you're playing mostly solo on a multiplayer server, you might wish to increase the amount of engram points you earn per level, or just make it match completely the rates of engram points gained in single player mode. In a single player game, the player will gain 8196 engram points overall (or more if they own the DLC's, which raise the level caps), which will allow them to eventually unlock almost all the vanilla content. They will still only gain a certain amount of points per level, so they will have to pick and choose what they unlock in the beginning. But overall, you earn almost double the engram points in single player mode.

You will have access to more engrams than "normal,” but you're still playing on a multiplayer server. This is handy if you have, for example, a small group of friends on a private server, and some of them have very limited time to play. They can join you on the days they are free to play and let you play "solo" on the others. The higher amount of engram points means you won't be hamstrung when they can't play, and you can still enjoy the game when playing by yourself.

How to Change the Points Earned

This is done by adding new lines to one of the game's config files.

The config file is called game.ini, and it's normally located in the ShooterGame/Saved/Config/(server) directory. The (server) section will depend on the operating system of your computer (windows, linux, etc).

Inside the game.ini file (which may be completely empty inside), add this line below.

[/script/shootergame.shootergamemode]

If there are settings already saved inside that config file, this line needs to be put below all the other settings. The engram override list needs to be the very last thing in the file.

This header is required for the game to understand which section of code this needs to be passed to in the game, for processing.

Immediately under that header, place this line:

OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=#

The # at the end of the line needs to be replaced with the actual number of engram points a player will receive when they go up to that level.

Simple? No. You need to keep repeating that line for every single level. Over and over and over and over and over and over again. The values have to be set separately for each level. It's the only way the system works.

So just keep stacking those same OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=# lines below each other.

And once again, make sure that this list of OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=# lines are the very last thing in the file, and that there are no other settings under it (or even blank lines). If you do need to put other settings in the game.ini file, place them first in the config file, above the [/script/shootergame.shootergamemode] header.

Save the changes to the file, and restart your server for it to go into effect.

Sample Values

Below is a sample override list, which sets player engrams to match what they'd normally receive in single player mode.

The values were pulled directly from the Wiki, at https://ark.gamepedia.com/Leveling

This list has a max level of 155, which is something you can only achieve if you own all the different DLC's. And yes, the 1 point thing at the end of the list is intentional. Just part of ARK's weirdness. So are some of the strange values in the middle of the list too.

[/script/shootergame.shootergamemode]
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=0
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=8
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=8
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=8
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=8
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=8
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=8
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=8
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=8
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=14
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=14
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=14
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=14
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=14
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=14
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=14
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=14
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=14
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=14
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=18
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=18
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=18
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=18
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=18
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=18
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=18
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=18
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=18
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=18
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=24
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=24
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=24
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=24
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=24
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=24
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=24
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=24
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=24
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=24
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=28
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=28
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=28
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=28
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=28
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=28
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=28
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=28
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=28
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=28
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=36
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=36
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=36
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=36
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=36
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=36
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=36
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=36
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=36
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=36
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=50
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=50
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=50
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=50
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=50
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=50
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=50
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=50
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=50
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=50
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=50
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=50
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=50
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=70
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=70
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=70
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=70
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=70
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=70
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=70
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=70
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=80
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=80
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=80
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=80
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=80
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=80
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=100
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=100
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=100
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=100
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=100
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=110
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=110
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=110
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=110
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=110
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=125
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=125
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=135
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=135
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=135
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=120
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=120
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=220
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=220
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=220
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=220
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=220
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=220
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=220
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=220
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=220
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=220
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=220
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=220
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=220
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=260
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=260
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1
OverridePlayerLevelEngramPoints=1

Changing the Engram Points Earned is Retroactive

If you have changed the amount of points you gain from each level, those changes should be retroactively applied when you restart the server. There should be no need to respec and reset your engrams (unless you want to).

When you join the server, you should see extra engram points on your character (basically, the difference between what you already spent and unlocked, and the new maximum total earned engram points for your level).

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