Server settings and scheduled tasks

Server › Settings holds how your sim, its HUD and its background jobs behave. This guide goes through each tab, then the other Server pages. Most of it is set once when a sim starts and touched rarely after. Every change is recorded in the Master log.

Who can do what

Page or tab	Look	Change
Globals, HUD settings, HUD themes, Themes, Containers, Translations	sim_settings or admin	sim_settings
Reports & awards	the same, or edit_awards	Report types: sim_settings. Award types: also edit_awards
Debug, Cron, Patches	Super Admin only	Super Admin only
Discord	discord_edit	discord_edit
Auth Keys	admin or authkey_edit	the same
Panic buttons	panic_economy or panic_server	the matching one

Super Admin can do everything. By default the Admin role can look at Settings, change award types, and use Discord, Auth Keys and Logs. See Groups, ranks and access.

Globals

A global is one named setting, such as web-title for your sim’s name on the website. The tab groups them by the start of their name: bank-, economy-, hud-, profile-, rp-, web- and so on.

• Type in Search keys, values and descriptions to find one.
• Change a value in its box, then press Save, or Enter. Undo puts it back.
• Edit changes the key, the value and What it does. Don’t rename a key: the system reads globals by name, and a renamed one falls back to its default.
• Add a global adds one that isn’t listed yet. Many settings, such as the rp- roleplay ones, work with a built-in default until you add them.

Some you’ll set early:

Global	What it does
web-title	Your sim’s name on the website
web-url	Your website’s address, ending in /
combat-defaultGameSystem	The game system your sim plays by default
hud-motd, hud-tosLink, hud-simRulesLink	The message of the day, and links to your terms and rules
profile-maxChars	How many characters an account can have
hud-levelSystem, hud-levelStats, profile-perkPicks	How levelling works. See Levels and XP
bank-enabled, economy-*, faction-tax	The bank and the economy. See The economy
rp-*	Roleplay rewards. See Levels and XP

Leave these alone: ROOTFOLDER and DEEPFOLDERPATH tell the server where its code is. sim-partyNumber, and anything ending in -last-run, are kept by the system itself. The panic switches aren’t listed here: use the Panic buttons page.

HUD settings

The HUD’s own settings, each in a group. Pick a Group to see one, or search. A setting that isn’t at its default shows changed. Reset puts the default back, and its tooltip says what that is.

Group	What it holds
Hud-Buttons	Which Home buttons show: Character, Fight, Inventory, Trade, Dice and so on
Hud-Bars-Top and Hud-Bar	The bars at the top of Home: what each shows and its formula
Hud-Bars-Bottom	The counters along the bottom of Home: Effects, Quests, Bounties, Events, Bank
Hud-Settings	Coin mode, the command and emote channels, the Home layout and the HUD’s scale
Char-Creation	Whether creation asks for a class and race, the points to spend, and the labels it uses
Hud-Color	The HUD’s colours
Hud-Combat	Healing and regeneration out of fights
Hud-Titler and Titler	The titler’s switches, and its PvP, rating, depth and intimacy lists

The HUD look covers the look in full.

HUD themes and Themes

• HUD themes shows each theme folder with a preview. Set each one’s Accent and Panel colours, or leave them on Auto. The one marked Sim default is what the HUD shows before a player’s group picks another.
• Themes is your website’s look: which themes staff and players can pick, your sim’s default theme, accent colour and logo, what players may change about their own look, and your sim’s colours.

Reports & awards

Report types are the kinds of IC report players file. Award types are the kinds of award, each paying its Influence as XP to everyone on an approved award. Event kinds set which awards an event gives. A type switched off can’t be filed any more, but reports already filed keep it. You can only delete a type nothing uses. See Levels and XP and Running events.

Translations

The HUD’s words in another language. Pick a Language, then Translate a line, or Change one that’s already translated. Only lines still in English shows what’s left. A line’s {placeholders} must stay as they are, or it won’t save. New accounts start in sets the language new players get.

Containers

Every bank, shared container and ATM on your sim. New container adds one: give it a Name, a Kind and, if you like, an item needed to open it and how close players must be. Put the number it shows in the in-world container’s description. See Items and crafting.

Debug

Super Admin only. Each category of the server’s own log can be switched on, written to the error log or the database, kept to a number of entries, and set to warn Discord’s system-alerts group. Errors are on by default. The Debug log below shows the entries, with filters. Switch on cron_dispatcher while you check scheduled tasks are running.

Scheduled tasks

The Cron tab lists the tasks your server runs on its own. Super Admin only.

Each card shows how often the task runs, when it last ran and when it runs next. A task’s settings, if it has any, sit on its card: change one and press Save, or Use default. Run on next pass runs a task soon. Edit changes how often it runs, or switches it off. Schedule a task adds one: pick the Task, then Every (minutes) or Once a day at a time.

The server checks every minute and runs whatever is due. A task that fails tries again on the next check.

Task	What it does	Usually runs	Needed for
AuctionClose	Ends auctions: sold to the top bid, or back to the seller	Every minute	The auction house
BankInterest	Pays or charges interest	Every day	The bank
BanTimer	Lifts timed bans when they end	Every 2 minutes	Timed bans
BountyExpire	Ends bounties past their end date	Every hour	The bounty board
CommunityProjects	Ends projects past their deadline	Every 5 minutes	Community projects
CraftComplete	Finishes timed crafts and starts the next waiting job	Every minute	Crafting
CraftOrderExpire	Ends crafting orders and refunds the payment	Every hour	Crafting orders
CronHealing	Heals HP and restores energy and mana out of fights	Every 2 minutes	Healing out of fights
EconomyExport	Builds the weekly economy export	Every day	The economy export
EconomyStabiliser	Measures the economy and adjusts prices	Every week	The economy stabiliser
EmoteRewards	Pays XP for roleplay scenes	Every 5 to 15 minutes	Roleplay XP
EnvLockdowns	Ends lockdowns from failed interactions	Every minute	Fail lockdowns
EventsTick	Starts planned events and ends them for approval	Every 5 minutes	Events
GeneratorFuel	Burns generator fuel and sets their power	Every minute	Fuelled generators
ItemUuid	Tidies inventories: one row per unique copy	Every hour	Keeping copies apart
ItemWear	Wears worn gear down a little each day	Every day	Item wear
Nodes	Refills every character’s gathering attempts	Every hour	Gathering without Work Hours
OnSimXp	Pays XP for time on the sim	Every hour. Not scheduled on a new sim: add it	XP for time on the sim
PartyStaleCleanup	Disbands parties left alone without a fight, and trims old fight logs	Every 15 minutes	Parties
RankPromotions	Promotes members in groups with automatic ranks	Every 10 minutes	Rank promotions
Rewards	Pays approved awards	Every 15 minutes	Awards
RewardsReminder	Tells Discord when awards are waiting	Every hour	Award reminders
Spoilage	Spoils food and other perishables	Every hour	Item spoilage
StallRent	Renews or closes player stalls	Every 5 minutes	Player stalls
StatsRollup	Adds up yesterday’s numbers for Sim stats	Every hour	Sim stats
StipendPayout	Pays group stipends	Every hour	Stipends
Timers	Ends timed effects, such as item buffs and Wanted	Every minute	Timed effects
VendorRestock	Refills limited vendor stock	Every hour, off until you switch it on	Vendor stock
WoundTick	Heals or worsens untreated wounds	Every 5 minutes	Wounds
ActivityExpReward	Older: a little XP for every character of anyone who’s spent an hour on the sim this week	Only if you want it	Older activity XP
ActivityLevelUp	Older: XP and money for active accounts, and every character on an account raised to the XP of its highest	Only if you want it	Older activity rewards
Workhours	Older: adds a gathering attempt to every character each run. Not the Work Hours players spend on crafting	Only if you want it	Older gathering

A task you don’t use can stay off. Check this tab when something that should happen on its own doesn’t: timed bans not lifting, crafts not finishing, stipends not paying, roleplay XP not arriving.

Careful: a card marked No such task any more points at a task that’s been removed or renamed. Switch it off.

Patches

Super Admin only. When Black Box updates your sim’s code, some updates come with database patches. This tab lists the patches Waiting to run and those already Applied.

• Apply all pending runs every waiting patch in order. It stops at the first one that fails.
• View shows what a patch does and its SQL.
• Apply runs only the next one. Mark applied records a patch as run without running it, for one that was already run by hand.
• A patch marked Instance data changes your sim’s data, not only its tables. Read it before you run it.
• Changed since applied means the file changed after it ran. It isn’t run again.

Usually Black Box runs these for you. If you run them yourself, pull the new code first so the new patches show.

Discord

Server › Discord sends the system’s alerts to your Discord channels. On a new sim, a warning lists the groups the system posts to that don’t exist yet, with Create it.

1. On Webhooks, press Add a webhook for each channel: a Name and its Webhook URL, from the channel’s settings in Discord, under Integrations, Webhooks.
2. On Groups, create any missing groups, then press + webhook on each to send it to a channel.
3. On Ping keys, add the Discord roles to mention, by their Role ID.
4. Press Test to send a test message.

Group	What it gets
admin	Bans, kicks and unbans, account locks, character sheets, award reminders, premade operations, panic buttons
system-alerts	Errors from the debug categories with alerts on
sheet-arrivals	A character whose sheet needs checking arriving on the sim
radio	Staff radio
bounties	The bounty board
bank	Large transfers, frozen cards, stipends a group couldn’t pay
events	New events
economy	The stabiliser’s reports and alerts, the economy export
lawful	Outlawed spells cast in lawful zones
community	Community projects starting, reaching milestones and ending

Auth Keys and Panic buttons

• Auth Keys makes the keys your in-world objects use to talk to the server. See In-world setup.
• Panic buttons pauses the economy or switches the server off for players, with a reason they see. See Moderation. What players see is in Crime and the law.

Related guides

• Setting up your sim
• Reading the logs
• Levels and XP
• The HUD look
• Moderation