HomeGuidesARK: Survival Evolved and Ascended

Mods via Steam Workshop (Evolved) and CurseForge (Ascended)

Adding mods to ARK: mod IDs, load order, the first start after adding mods, and how players get them.

1 min readUpdated 2026-09-14Diese Anleitung auf Deutsch lesen →

Evolved (Steam Workshop)

  1. Find the mod on the Steam Workshop; the number at the end of its URL is the mod ID.
  2. Startup → MOD_ID → IDs separated by commas, in load order: 731604991,895711211. Total-conversion mods (Primal Fear etc.) may need TotalConversionMod= in GameUserSettings.ini instead.
  3. Restart. The server downloads and installs the mods before starting. The first start after adding mods takes 10-20 minutes while it does that. Watch the console.
  4. Players subscribe to the same mods in the Workshop; ARK installs them in the client on join if they are missing.

Mods that stopped being updated break with game updates. Remove a mod ID and restart if the server stops loading after an update.

Ascended (CurseForge)

Ascended mods come from CurseForge. Startup → MOD_IDS (the -mods= argument) → comma-separated CurseForge project IDs: 927090,928988. The server fetches them itself; players get them automatically on join. No Workshop, no manual download.

Load order matters

Maps and total conversions first, then core mods (structures, stacking), then dino mods. Two mods that change the same thing: the later one wins or crashes. Add mods one at a time and start in between when in doubt.