Game Server Day and Night Length Settings for Every Popular Game

Most survival servers let you change how long days and nights last with a speed multiplier or a length in minutes, set in the server's config file. ARK and Conan Exiles use DayCycleSpeedScale, Palworld uses DayTimeSpeedRate and NightTimeSpeedRate, 7 Days to Die uses DayNightLength in real minutes, and DayZ uses serverTimeAcceleration. A few games, like Valheim, have no setting at all. Stop the server before editing, change the value, and restart.

Multipliers vs lengths

Settings come in two flavors, and mixing them up is the most common mistake:

• Speed multipliers (ARK, Conan Exiles, Palworld, DayZ): 1.0 is normal. Higher numbers make time pass faster, so days get shorter. Lower numbers make time slower and days longer. A value of 0.5 doubles the length of a day.
• Lengths (7 Days to Die, V Rising, Enshrouded): you set the duration directly, in minutes, seconds or another unit. Bigger numbers mean longer days.

The settings, game by game

ARK: Survival Ascended and Conan Exiles

Both use Unreal Engine style multipliers. DayCycleSpeedScale speeds up or slows down the whole cycle. DayTimeSpeedScale and NightTimeSpeedScale apply on top, to just the day or just the night.

[ServerSettings]
DayCycleSpeedScale=1.0
DayTimeSpeedScale=0.5
NightTimeSpeedScale=2.0

That keeps the overall cycle, makes daytime last twice as long, and makes night pass twice as fast. A popular setup for PvE servers where night is just an annoyance. For ARK's other settings, see best ARK: Survival Ascended server settings.

Palworld

In PalWorldSettings.ini, inside the long OptionSettings=(...) line:

DayTimeSpeedRate=1.000000,NightTimeSpeedRate=2.000000

Higher numbers mean faster time. Setting NightTimeSpeedRate to 2 halves the night. On Palworld changes to an existing world, see how to change Palworld settings on an existing world.

7 Days to Die

<property name="DayNightLength" value="90" />
<property name="DayLightLength" value="18" />

DayNightLength is how many real minutes a full 24 hour game day takes. The default is 60. DayLightLength is how many of those 24 game hours are daylight. Longer days mean more building time between horde nights, which come around on a set day count no matter how long each day is.

DayZ

serverTimeAcceleration = 4;
serverNightTimeAcceleration = 4;
serverTimePersistent = 0;

serverTimeAcceleration speeds up the whole clock (0 to 24). serverNightTimeAcceleration multiplies on top of it, only at night (0.1 to 64), so 4 and 4 means nights run 16 times faster than real time. Many servers use this to keep nights short. serverTime sets the starting time, either SystemTime or a fixed date and time. See serverDZ.cfg explained for the rest of the file.

V Rising

In ServerGameSettings.json, under GameTimeModifiers:

"GameTimeModifiers": {
  "DayDurationInSeconds": 1080.0,
  "DayStartHour": 9,
  "DayEndHour": 17
}

DayDurationInSeconds is the length of a full game day. DayStartHour and DayEndHour set when the dangerous sunlight lasts. Shorter daylight hours make life easier for vampires.

Enshrouded

"gameSettings": {
  "dayTimeDuration": 1800000000000,
  "nightTimeDuration": 720000000000
}

The values are nanoseconds: 1,800,000,000,000 is 30 minutes. Count the zeros carefully. Enshrouded's settings also live in game presets, so set gameSettingsPreset to Custom for these values to apply.

Games without a day length setting

• Valheim: no server setting. The day cycle is fixed. You can skip nights by sleeping.
• Minecraft: no length setting, but you can freeze the cycle with the daylight cycle game rule (/gamerule doDaylightCycle false on older versions; newer versions renamed some game rules, so type /gamerule and use tab completion to find it) and set the time with /time set day. Plugins can stretch days.
• Rust: no simple length setting. You can freeze time with env.progresstime false and set it with env.time 12, or use a time of day plugin on Oxide or Carbon.
• Satisfactory: the cycle is fixed.

Tips for choosing values

• Change one thing at a time and play a full cycle before tweaking again.
• Shorter nights are the most requested change on PvE servers. Most games let you change night speed alone.
• Very fast cycles (multipliers of 5 or more) can make lighting flicker and confuse some timers.
• Back up first if the game stores time in the save. Some games apply the change at the next dawn rather than immediately.

Changing it without editing files

On a GamezServers server many of these are fields in the control panel: Palworld's day and night speed rates and DayZ's time and night multipliers, for example. For everything else, the file manager and SFTP let you edit the config directly, and one click backups let you undo a bad change. See all our games.

FAQ

How do I make nights shorter on my server?

Raise the night speed setting: NightTimeSpeedScale in ARK and Conan Exiles, NightTimeSpeedRate in Palworld, serverNightTimeAcceleration in DayZ. Values above 1.0 make night pass faster.

Does a longer day change horde nights in 7 Days to Die?

No. Blood moons come on a set number of in game days. Longer days give you more real time between them.

Can I change day length in Valheim?

Not with a server setting. The cycle is fixed unless you use mods.

Why did my day length setting not apply?

The server was running when you edited the file and overwrote it on shutdown, or the game uses a preset that overrides custom values. Stop the server before editing, then start it again.