Palworld 1.0 mods: what works on a server

Palworld 1.0 added official mod support through the Steam Workshop. Players can join your server with their own client-side mods once the server allows it, and most rules a server-side mod would change are already sliders in World Settings.

Client-side and server-side mods

Client-side mods run only on your own PC: interface tweaks, visual changes and quality-of-life features that don't change the shared world. You install them from the Steam Workshop, and the server never loads them.

Server-side mods change the world everyone shares: base limits, new items, new Pals, rule changes. They have to be installed on the server itself, and a mod is only built to run there if its author marked it that way ("IsServer": true in the mod's Info.json).

Do server-side mods work on a Linux server?

Not yet. Pocketpair's system has you copy Workshop items into Mods/Workshop, list them in Mods/PalModSettings.ini and restart, and the server then places each mod's UE4SS, Lua, PalSchema, LogicMods or pak files itself. As of Palworld 1.0.4, Pocketpair's server mod documentation says this works only on the Windows edition of the dedicated server, and ours run the Linux edition.

So Workshop server mods won't load on your server, even if you upload them through the File Manager. Client-side mods need nothing from the server apart from permission to join, covered below.

Use World Settings instead of a settings mod

Many quality-of-life server mods change something the panel already controls. Capture rate, work speed, item weight, egg hatch time, base and guild limits, build limits and building decay are all sliders or switches in World Settings.

1. Open your server in the dashboard and go to World Settings, under Content in the left rail.
2. Pick the Casual or Hardcore preset, or change the settings you want. Discard throws away anything you haven't saved.
3. Select Save settings. The panel confirms with "World settings saved".
4. Restart the server. The new values apply once the status reads Running.

The server name, passwords, player limit and crossplay platforms are set in the Startup tab instead. Palworld server settings and best presets explains every setting. For the jobs a moderation mod would do, such as kicks, bans and broadcasts, Palworld's own commands work from the panel's Console: see How to become admin and use admin commands on your Palworld server.

Let players with client mods join

Palworld has a server setting, bAllowClientMod, that decides whether players who have mods enabled may join. It isn't one of the World Settings controls, so you set it in the file.

1. Stop the server.

2. Open the File Manager and open Pal/Saved/Config/LinuxServer/PalWorldSettings.ini. If the folder is empty, start the server once, then stop it again.

3. In the OptionSettings=(...) line, set the key below. If it isn't there, add it inside the brackets, separated from its neighbours by a comma.

   bAllowClientMod=True
   

4. Save the file and Start the server.

Saving from World Settings later keeps the key: the panel rewrites the values it shows and leaves every other key in the line as it was.

Update Palworld without breaking a world

Old mod files left in the game folder can crash the game, corrupt saves and break quests, even when they are switched off. Your server installs any newer Palworld server build when it starts, so a patch reaches it at the next restart. Until each mod author has updated, handle each patch in this order:

1. Back up the server before its next restart. In the Backups tab, select Create backup. If a nightly restart is scheduled, that restart installs the patch too, so do this first.
2. Download the finished backup so you keep a copy after a later backup replaces it. How to create and restore backups covers restoring it. On each PC, back up single-player saves too, then unsubscribe from the Workshop mods and delete old mod files and mod loaders from the game folder.
3. Verify the game files in Steam: right-click Palworld, then Properties > Installed Files > Verify integrity of game files.
4. Restart the server. The Console prints [PYW] Running SteamCMD update while it installs the new build, or [PYW] Server is on the current build. Then check that everyone can join with no mods installed.
5. Add mods back one at a time, and only once their authors have updated them.

If players can't join or the world won't load

• Everyone else gets in, one modded player can't - have them turn their mods off in the game's mod menu and try again. If they get in, it was the mods, so check the bAllowClientMod setting.
• Nobody can join after a patch - the server and the game are usually on different versions. Restart the server so it installs the new build, check the Console shows it running, and have players update their game. Host Palworld for friends (Steam, Xbox, PS5) covers version mismatches in detail.
• The world won't load after a mod change - restore the backup from before the change in the Backups tab.

If none of these match, support needs four things: the mod's Workshop link, exactly what the player sees when they try to join (the message, or how far the join gets), whether they get in with mods turned off, and the version on their title screen.