Floating Damage Numbers in ARK: Evolved

Floating damage numbers pop up over whatever you hit, RPG style, so you can see how hard each blow lands. On your ARK: Survival Evolved server this is a single key in GameUserSettings.ini. It is not one of the controls on the Server Settings tab, so you add the line yourself in the File Manager.

Checked against the ARK Wiki's Server configuration page, October 2026.

The setting

The wiki lists it as a boolean, introduced in patch 242.0, with a default of False.

Turn it on

1. Click Stop in the panel and wait until the server is offline. ARK writes GameUserSettings.ini back out when it shuts down, so an edit made while it runs is overwritten.
2. Open the File Manager tab and go to ShooterGame/Saved/Config/LinuxServer/.
3. Double-click GameUserSettings.ini, or select it and click Edit. The file is created the first time the server boots, so a brand-new server needs one start and a stop first. How to manage your server files covers editing.
4. Find the [ServerSettings] header. Add the line under it, next to the other settings:

[ServerSettings]
ShowFloatingDamageText=True

5. Click Save, then Start the server.

If the key is already in the file with the value False, change that value to True rather than adding a second line.

Check it

Join the server and hit a wild creature. The damage figure appears over it as popup text. To turn the feature off again, set the value back to False and repeat the steps above.

Common problems

1. No numbers appear: the server was running when you edited, so ARK replaced your change when it shut down. Stop first, edit, then Start.
2. The key is ignored: it must sit under [ServerSettings]. Check the header above the line, not only the line.
3. A different value keeps winning: a value on the launch line beats the ini file. If you typed this key into Additional Arguments on the Startup tab, change it there. Otherwise nothing on the Startup tab sets it.

For the other keys in this file and how the two ini files differ, read ARK ini settings explained.