Sakurajima Part 2: The Core Descent
The **Core Descent** update (Late 2025) marks the final chapter of the Sakurajima expansion cycle. This update introduces the subterranean **Abyssal Biome**, the **Ancient Pal-Summoning Altar**, and massive raid boss encounters that challenge even the highest-tier server hardware.
🌋 Expansion Highlights
- The Abyssal Biome: A massive cave system beneath Sakurajima with custom "Void-Variant" Pals.
- Ancient Altar: A new structure for summoning multi-stage raid bosses.
- Raid Complexity: Bosses now have "Minion Phases," doubling the server's entity count during encounters.
Hosting the Abyssal Biome
The Abyssal biome is uniquely CPU-intensive due to its verticality and complex pathfinding. In 2026, server owners should adjust their settings to prevent "Physics Lag" within these zones.
📉 Culling Subterranean Entities
Use the Pal.SubsurfaceSimRate setting (added in Dec 2025) to reduce the tick rate of Pals that are not in the same vertical chunk as players. A value of 0.5 is recommended for high-pop servers.
⚡ Pathfinding Optimization
Subterranean Pals often get stuck in narrow tunnels, and a stuck worker is a
pathfinding loop that costs CPU for as long as it lasts. There is no server
setting for this: WorkforceSanityCheck and
AutoTeleportStuckPal are both absent from the shipped 1.2 build, in
the settings file and in the server binary alike. What you can control is how
many workers exist to get stuck, with BaseCampWorkerMaxNum
(default 15) and BaseCampMaxNum (default 128).
Ancient Altar Summoning: Server Impact
Summoning a raid boss at the Ancient Altar triggers a "high-priority sync event." If your server has low RAM availability, these summons can cause a 5-10 second "World Freeze."
Recommended Altar Configuration (2026):
- Drop cleanup after the fight: the thing that actually
lingers is dropped loot, and it has real settings.
DropItemAliveMaxHoursships at1.000000and is how long a drop survives;DropItemMaxNumships at3000and caps how many exist at once. Lowering the first is the direct fix for a world still carrying debris from the last summon. - Physics load:
PhysicsActiveDropItemMaxNumships at-1, meaning unlimited. Setting a real number caps how many drops are physically simulated, which is the part that costs frame time during a busy fight. - Not a setting: there is no way to limit concurrent summons.
MaxActiveRaidsandRaidEntityLifespanappear in guides but are in neither the shipped settings file nor the server binary, and in fact no Palworld setting contains the wordRaidapart from the master switchbEnableInvaderEnemy. A key the server does not recognise is ignored silently, so a config built on those two looks applied and does nothing.
The 2026 Loot Transition
Sakurajima Part 2 introduced **Eternal Cores**, a new currency for high-tier server progression. As an admin, you can customize the drop rates for these in PalWorldSettings.ini to match your server's economy speed.
# Customize Eternal Core drop rates for Bosses
EternalCoreDropRate=2.0
VoidVariantCaptureBonus=1.5
Troubleshooting Sub-World Crashes
Players are falling through the floor in the Abyssal Biome?
This is a **Map Chunk Sync** error common in late-2025 builds. Ensure your server's MaxNetworkClientRate is set to at least 1,000,000 to handle the burst of map data required for the caves.
Server FPS drops to 5 during Raid Bosses?
This is likely due to **Damage Numerical Spam**. Use a server-side mod to disable damage numbers for non-players, or reduce the EffectVfxLimit in your server configuration.
Can I host Part 2 on 16GB of RAM?
For small groups (1-4), yes. For public servers, **32GB is the minimum baseline** for the Sakurajima Part 2 era due to the increased memory footprint of the subterranean textures.
Next Steps
Raid-Ready Hosting: Supercraft’s **Pal-Titan** plans feature high-bandwidth NVMe storage designed to stream Abyssal map data with zero stutter. We include pre-configured Altar limits to keep your server stable during the toughest boss fights.
Looking for managed Palworld server hosting? Supercraft runs Palworld dedicated servers with daily backups, instant setup, and 4 region options.