ARK: Survival Ascended Tribes, Admin Access and Permissions
A tribe is the ownership container in ARK. Every structure, tame, locked door and pin code on an ARK: Survival Ascended dedicated server belongs to a tribe, not to an account, and nearly every permission argument traces back to that fact. This page is the model: what a tribe owns, how ranks gate it, how an admin gets authority, and which tribe settings you control. For command syntax see ARK admin commands and the ASA console commands full guide.
admincheat versus cheat: the prefix question
The official ARK Community Wiki documents the two as alternatives for the same thing: commands need to be prefixed with cheat or admincheat if used on a multiplayer server, and there is no such need in single player. So admincheat Fly and cheat Fly do the same thing. Neither grants more power. What actually differs is where you are typing.
| Context | EnableCheats needed? | Prefix needed? | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single player or non-dedicated | No | No | A prefix is harmless if you type one out of habit |
| Dedicated server, in-game console | Yes, once per session | Yes, either form | Cheat status drops when you disconnect |
| Dedicated server, RCON | No | Accepted, not required | EnableCheats is documented as unusable from the remote console |
The failure everyone hits is not the wrong prefix. It is no prefix on a dedicated server, or a prefix before authenticating. Both look identical: the console takes the line and nothing happens, with no error telling you that you are not an admin. Three related traps:
- Authentication is per session. Reconnect, or hop maps in a cluster, and you run
EnableCheats <password>again. - Chaining commands on one line with the vertical bar means each one needs its own prefix.
- Over RCON you are already authenticated by
ServerAdminPassword, so the prefix is cosmetic. What does not work there is any command that targets your crosshair or your own character.
How an admin gets authority
The admin password. Set ServerAdminPassword in [ServerSettings] of GameUserSettings.ini, with no quotes around the value. Anyone who types it into EnableCheats is an admin for that session. It is a shared secret with no audit trail attached.
The admin whitelist. Create ShooterGame/Saved/AllowedCheaterAccountIDs.txt with one player ID per line. ASA uses Epic Online Services, so that is a 32 character alphanumeric EOS ID. Whitelisted players get cheat access automatically, as if they had run enablecheats. Survival Evolved uses AllowedCheaterSteamIDs.txt with 17 digit Steam IDs. With a whitelist in place an admin password is not required at all; keep one only as a fallback. To collect a player's ID, have them run whoami and read the OSS Id, run cheat ListPlayers, or read the UniqueNetId logged at connect.
RCON is an access path, not a third permission level. Set RCONEnabled=true and RCONPort (default 27020) and connect with the same admin password; RCONServerGameLogBuffer (default 600) sets how many log lines come back. One launch-line trap from our ASA server settings guide: ServerAdminPassword must be the last question-mark argument or it swallows the rest of the line.
Server admin and tribe admin are different roles that share a word. A server admin is authenticated against ServerAdminPassword or the whitelist and can cheat anywhere on the map. A tribe admin is a status inside one tribe, granted from the in-game Tribe Management screen, and carries no cheat access at all. Most reports of "he is an admin and still cannot open the vault" are a server admin sitting at rank 0 in the tribe, or the reverse.
What a tribe actually owns
Governance is chosen when the tribe is created. You can inspect a tribe's governance in the invitation screen before accepting, and it can be reset, but changing it afterwards generally means merging into a freshly created tribe.
| Governance area | Options | Who keeps it when a member leaves |
|---|---|---|
| Dino Ownership | Tribe Owned / Personally Owned, Tribe Ridden / Personally Owned, Personally Ridden | Tribe Owned stays. Both Personally Owned modes walk out with the player. |
| Dino Taming | Tribe Taming / Personal Taming, selectable only when Dino Ownership is not Tribe Owned | Personal Taming follows the ownership rule. The owner is whoever knocked the creature out or fed it first. |
| Structure Ownership | Tribe Owned / Personally Owned, Tribe Snap, Admin Demolish / Personally Owned, Personal Snap | Tribe Owned stays. Personally Owned builds stay with the builder. |
| Locks & Pincodes | Tribe Locks & Pincodes / Personal Locks & Pincodes, selectable only when Structure Ownership is not Tribe Owned | Personal locks mean even tribemates need the pin. |
Merge, do not join. A player already in a solo tribe who accepts a plain invite leaves everything they built and tamed behind with no owner. The tribe manager offers a merge instead, and merging is what carries their base across. This one mistake is behind most "I joined my friend and lost everything" reports.
Ranks and what they gate
On top of governance a tribe defines groups with a rank number. There are ten ranks, 0 through 9, and the Founder and tribe admins bypass rank checks entirely. Each structure and tame carries its own required rank, set from that object's radial menu, and a member can use it only if their group's matching value is equal or higher. The permissions a group can carry, named as they appear in the tribe manager:
- Prevent Demolishing Structures and Prevent Structure Building In Range, the build-side restrictions.
- Prevent Dino Unclaiming, which also covers cryopodding. This is what stops a leaving member pocketing the breeding line.
- Allow Invites, Limit Invites, Number Of Invites Allowed and Invite Into Group Rank.
- Allow Banishments, Allow Promotions and Allow Demotions, each capped by a Max Banishment, Max Promotion or Max Demotion Group Rank so a lieutenant cannot banish a co-founder.
- Access Inventory Rank and Activate Structure Rank, checked when a member opens a container or uses a door.
- New Structure Inventory Rank and New Structure Activate Rank, the rank stamped onto anything this group builds.
- Ride Pets Rank and Order Pets Rank, separating sitting on a tame from whistling it.
The wiki's worked example: an Argentavis at Inventory Rank 0, Riding Rank 3 and Order Rank 3 lets everyone load it but only rank 3 and above fly or command it. Build at least two groups, because with only one your own admins are boxed in by the same numbers as everyone else, and remember that builds inherit the builder's new-structure rank.
Tribe settings a server owner can configure
GameUserSettings.ini keys go in [ServerSettings]; Game.ini keys go in [/Script/ShooterGame.ShooterGameMode].
| Setting | File | Default | What it changes |
|---|---|---|---|
MaxNumberOfPlayersInTribe | Game.ini | 0 | Survivors per tribe. 0 is unlimited, 1 effectively disables tribes. |
TribeSlotReuseCooldown | Game.ini | 0.0 | Seconds a vacated tribe slot stays locked. Used on official Small Tribes. |
MaxTribeLogs | Game.ini | 400 | Tribe log entries kept visible per tribe. |
MaxAlliancesPerTribe | Game.ini | unset | Alliances a tribe can form or join. In-game ceiling is 5. |
MaxTribesPerAlliance | Game.ini | unset | Tribes inside one alliance. In-game ceiling is 12. |
bPvEAllowTribeWar | Game.ini | True | False stops PvE tribes declaring mutually agreed wars. |
bPvEAllowTribeWarCancel | Game.ini | False | True lets an agreed war be cancelled before it starts. |
PreventTribeAlliances | GameUserSettings.ini | False | True blocks alliances entirely. |
TribeNameChangeCooldown | GameUserSettings.ini | 15.0 | Minutes between tribe renames. Official uses 172800.0, two days. |
MaxPersonalTamedDinos | GameUserSettings.ini | 0 | Per-tribe tame limit, 0 disables it. Official runs 500 PvE, 300 PvP. |
AllowHideDamageSourceFromLogs | GameUserSettings.ini | True | False reveals who dealt the damage in tribe logs. |
TribeLogDestroyedEnemyStructures | GameUserSettings.ini | False | True records enemy structure destruction in the victim's log. |
PreventOutOfTribePinCodeUse | GameUserSettings.ini | False | True stops non-members using pins. Undocumented by the developer. |
AdminLogging | GameUserSettings.ini | False | True prints every admin command into in-game chat. |
ASA support is confirmed on the community wiki for PreventTribeAlliances, TribeNameChangeCooldown, AllowHideDamageSourceFromLogs, MaxPersonalTamedDinos and AdminLogging. The rest carry over from Survival Evolved and are still listed as unconfirmed, so set them, restart, and verify. Editing any of this needs file access and a restart, which on a managed ARK: Survival Ascended server is raw INI access plus one button rather than a maintenance window.
Common permission problems
| Symptom | Real cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| I cannot use admin commands | No ServerAdminPassword set, or EnableCheats never run this session | Set it in [ServerSettings] with no quotes, restart, authenticate after every reconnect |
| The command runs but nothing happens | Missing prefix on a dedicated server, or a crosshair command sent over RCON | Add admincheat in game; run crosshair and self commands from a real session |
| My tribe cannot access my dinos | Dino Ownership is Personally Owned, Personally Ridden | Governance is fixed at creation. Merge into a new Tribe Owned tribe, or hand tames over one by one |
| Tribemates cannot open my boxes | Personal Locks & Pincodes, or the box carries a higher Access Inventory Rank than their group | Share the pin, or lower the object's rank from its radial menu |
| Someone left and took everything | Personally Owned governance, or they joined instead of merging | Nothing undoes it. Prevent it with Tribe Owned governance plus Prevent Dino Unclaiming on low ranks |
| Structures belong to a tribe that no longer exists | An orphaned tribe ID still holds the objects | Let decay clear it, or audit the tribe ID and use the tribe-targeted destroy commands. See ARK structure decay |
| I demoted myself by accident | Only the Founder outranks an admin, and a tribe with no admin left cannot promote anyone | A server admin repairs it in game with the self-targeted tribe promotion commands. These are Self commands and will not work over RCON |
Audit before any destructive cleanup: the tribe audit commands print structure and dino counts for a given tribe ID, and a save backup costs nothing. See ASA backup strategy.
Moderation setup before you open to players
- Set a
ServerAdminPasswordused nowhere else, and never post it in a chat channel. Chat history outlives staff. - Prefer the whitelist. Listing staff by EOS ID makes each one individually identifiable and individually revocable.
- Enable RCON, then restrict the port at the firewall. It authenticates with the same admin password, so an open RCON port is an open admin console.
- Turn
AdminLoggingon before launch, not after an incident. Visible logging changes staff behaviour on its own. - Keep an out-of-game record of who holds admin, when it was granted, and what was done. A dated line per action is what settles a dispute later.
- Back up the save before every wipe, merge or mass destroy. Tribe commands are not reversible.
- Pin the tribe rules: alliance policy, whether merges are allowed, and what happens to an inactive tribe's base.
Why handing out admin is how servers die
Most unofficial ARK servers that collapse are destroyed from the inside, and the reason is structural: ARK has no scoped admin permission, only one cheat flag. Whoever can teleport a stuck player can also spawn a full tek set, force-tame a level 150 Giga, wipe a rival tribe's structures and take ownership of a base in one command, and none of it is auditable unless logging was on beforehand. The helpful staff member does as much damage as the dishonest one, replacing a lost tame at the wrong level and quietly breaking the economy everyone else is playing inside.
Give something narrower instead:
- Tribe rank powers inside their own tribe, which is real authority with a real blast radius limit.
- A chat role and the right to escalate, rather than the ability to act directly.
- A spectator password, so a moderator can watch a dispute without changing anything.
- Restarts and backups run by the host rather than by a person holding the admin password.
Keep true admin to the smallest group accountable for the server existing, whitelist them by ID so each can be revoked alone, and rotate ServerAdminPassword whenever anyone with it stops being staff. Related: ASA dino management commands, ARK cluster setup, offline raid protection, and the official ARK Community Wiki page on Tribes.
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