Insurgency: Sandstorm Game.ini: Every Setting Explained

Most of Insurgency: Sandstorm's deeper gameplay settings, like friendly fire, round length, bot counts, and idle kicking, live in a single file: Game.ini. This guide covers where to find it, why it starts out completely empty, the formatting rules it's picky about, and a curated list of the settings players ask about most.

💡 Note: This guide focuses on gameplay balance settings. For your server name, ports, tokens, and starting map, see the Game Settings tab covered below instead — most of those don't belong in Game.ini at all.

Where To Find Game.ini

Log into your MintServers panel and click the Stop button to shut down your server before editing.
Navigate to the Files tab on the left-hand sidebar.
Browse to the folder shown below. If it doesn't exist yet, start your server once and stop it again — Insurgency: Sandstorm generates its default config files on first launch.

    📁 Insurgency (or your main server directory)
            📁 Saved
                    📁 Config
                            📁 LinuxServer
                                    📄 Game.ini (Click to edit this file)

                                    📄 Engine.ini (covered later in this guide)

⚠️ Don't Leave It Empty For Long: A freshly generated Game.ini is completely blank, and that's normal. But a blank file can cause certain co-op scenarios to instantly end or fail to load, since the game has no settings telling it how many bots to spawn or how long a round should run. If you notice a scenario ending immediately or refusing to load, adding the relevant settings below is usually the fix.

What's Already Set On The Game Settings Tab

Before touching Game.ini, it's worth knowing which settings the MintServers panel already handles for you. These are sent to the game as launch parameters every time your server starts, and are not stored inside Game.ini at all:

Server Name — the name shown in the Community Servers browser.
Query Port — used only for browser visibility, not for players connecting.
Max Players — the player slot cap.
Default Map / Scenario Name — what your server loads on startup.
Additional Switches — a free-text field for extra command-line launch parameters.
Game Stats Token / GSLT Authentication — the two tokens required for server browser visibility.

Everything else, like combat rules, round settings, and bot behavior, has to be added to Game.ini by hand.

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Game.ini Formatting Rules

Insurgency: Sandstorm is strict about how settings are formatted. If a setting isn't written exactly right, the game will typically just ignore it rather than showing an error.

Headers matter: Every setting needs a section header above it in square brackets, like [/Script/Insurgency.INSGameMode]. A setting with no header above it is ignored. Headers are case-sensitive, so copy them exactly.
No blank lines within a section: Keep every setting directly under its header with no empty lines in between. A blank line starts a new (headerless, and therefore ignored) section.
Each header appears only once: If you have several settings for the same section, list them all together under a single instance of that header rather than repeating it.
More specific sections can override general ones: A setting under a game-mode-specific header, like the Checkpoint co-op header, can override the same setting under a general header for that match.

Commonly Adjusted Settings

The full settings list is extensive and covers every game mode individually. Below are the ones players and admins most commonly want to change. Only add the settings you actually intend to use, since Sandstorm's official admin guide notes that some options can conflict when combined unnecessarily.

📄 Game.ini — Combat & Fair Play

[/Script/Insurgency.INSGameMode]
bKillFeed=False
bKillerInfo=True
TeamKillLimit=3
TeamKillGrace=0.2

[/Script/Insurgency.INSMultiplayerMode]
bAllowFriendlyFire=True
FriendlyFireModifier=0.2

bKillFeed — shows a kill feed on screen. Default False.
bKillerInfo — reveals who killed you on the death screen. Default True.
TeamKillLimit — team kills allowed before a player is auto-kicked. Default 3.
TeamKillGrace — grace period multiplier right after round start. Default 0.2.
bAllowFriendlyFire — Default True.
FriendlyFireModifier — damage multiplier applied to friendly fire. Default 0.2.

📄 Game.ini — Rounds, Balance & Idle Kicking

[/Script/Insurgency.INSMultiplayerMode]
bAutoAssignTeams=True
bAutoBalanceTeams=True
AutoBalanceDelay=10
bMapVoting=True
IdleLimit=150
RoundTime=480
RoundLimit=5
WinLimit=3

bAutoAssignTeams / bAutoBalanceTeams — automatically assign and rebalance teams. Both default True.
AutoBalanceDelay — seconds before a rebalance kicks in. Default 10.
bMapVoting — enables end-of-match map voting. Default True.
IdleLimit — seconds before an idle player is kicked. Default 150.
RoundTime — round length in seconds. Default 480 (8 minutes).
RoundLimit — rounds played per match. Default 5.
WinLimit — rounds needed to win the match. Default 3.

📄 Game.ini — Bots (Co-op)

[/Script/Insurgency.INSMultiplayerMode]
bBots=False
BotQuots=0

bBots — enables bots in regular multiplayer game modes. Default False.
BotQuots — number of bots spawned when bBots is enabled. Yes, it's really spelled this way in the game's own settings, not a typo on our end. Default 0.

💡 Pro Tip: If a setting is one you're leaving disabled, it's cleaner to delete its related sub-settings entirely rather than leaving them at 0. It keeps the file easier to read and avoids conflicting values later.

Bonus: Adjusting Tick Rate (Engine.ini)

Tick rate isn't a Game.ini setting, it lives in the neighboring Engine.ini file in the same folder. The default is 60, and increasing it can smooth out gameplay, though it uses more server and player bandwidth.

📄 Engine.ini

[/Script/OnlineSubsystemUtils.IpNetDriver]
NetServerMaxTickRate=128

A Note On RCON

RCON is also enabled through Game.ini rather than the Game Settings tab:

📄 Game.ini

[Rcon]
bEnabled=True
Password=yourpasswordhere
ListenPort=27015

Setting up an RCON client and connecting to it is covered in its own dedicated guide, so this is just the config side of enabling it.

🛠️ Troubleshooting Common Issues

Settings don't seem to apply: Double-check the header above each setting is spelled and cased exactly right, and that there are no blank lines between a header and its settings.
Co-op scenario ends instantly or won't load: This usually means a required setting for that game mode is missing. Add back the relevant defaults from the sections above.
A setting doesn't seem to work even though it's in Game.ini: Check whether it's actually one of the settings controlled by the Game Settings tab instead (see the list above). Those override anything you put in Game.ini.
File doesn't exist yet: Start your server once, then stop it. Insurgency: Sandstorm creates its default config files on first launch.

Game.ini can look intimidating with how many settings Insurgency: Sandstorm supports, but you only ever need to add the handful you actually care about. If you get stuck formatting a section or a setting won't take effect, no worries! Just open a support ticket and our team will gladly help you sort it out.