Understanding the Vehicles Section of Config.json

Beginner15-20 minutesCross-platformConfig.jsonUnturned Dedicated Server

The Vehicles section controls how the dedicated server handles vehicle spawning, decay, respawning, damage, and population on your map. If you are searching for "how to change vehicle spawn rates" or "how to make vehicles tougher on my server," every key you need is in this section. It lives under the "Vehicles" object inside Config.json.

This article covers all 20 keys. Each one is explained in plain terms, grouped by what it governs, so you can find the right key quickly and understand what changing it will actually do to your server.

What this section governs

When an Unturned server starts a level, it reads the Vehicles section to answer five distinct groups of questions:

1. Population. How many vehicles can exist on the map at once, and how many must be present before the server stops trying to spawn more?

2. Spawning conditions. When a vehicle spawns, what are the odds it has a battery? A tire on each wheel? How charged is the battery?

3. Decay. If a vehicle sits unused for too long, when does it start taking damage, and how fast does the damage tick?

4. Respawn and safezone behaviour. How long does a wreck stay on the map before it despawns? How long must a locked vehicle sit empty in a safezone before the lock is automatically removed?

5. Damage and repair multipliers. How much punishment can vehicles take from guns, melee, and explosions? How effective is a repair tool like the Blowtorch?

Every key in this section is a property of the server's vehicle ruleset. They do not control individual vehicles or vehicle types -- they set the broad parameters that apply to every vehicle on the map.

The complete key table

The table below lists every key the Vehicles section accepts, its data type, and its default value as defined in the game's own configuration data class. The defaults are what the server uses if the key is absent or the section is not present at all.

Key	Type	Default
Decay_Time	float	-
Decay_Damage_Per_Second	float	-
Has_Battery_Chance	float	-
Min_Battery_Charge	float	-
Max_Battery_Charge	float	-
Has_Tire_Chance	float	-
Respawn_Time	float	-
Unlocked_After_Seconds_In_Safezone	float	-
Armor_Multiplier	float	-
Child_Explosion_Armor_Multiplier	float	-
Gun_Lowcal_Damage_Multiplier	float	-
Gun_Highcal_Damage_Multiplier	float	-
Melee_Damage_Multiplier	float	-
Melee_Repair_Multiplier	float	-
Max_Instances_Tiny	uint	-
Max_Instances_Small	uint	-
Max_Instances_Medium	uint	-
Max_Instances_Large	uint	-
Max_Instances_Insane	uint	-
Min_Natural_Vehicles	uint	-

All 20 keys are optional in the strictest sense. If you omit the entire "Vehicles" object from your config, the server falls back to the internal defaults. In practice, you will set these keys to match the kind of vehicle experience you want on your server.

The type float means the value is a decimal number. The type uint means an unsigned integer -- a whole number that cannot be negative.

Vehicle decay

Two keys control decay: Decay_Time and Decay_Damage_Per_Second. Together they form a two-stage system that punishes vehicles left unattended for too long.

Decay_Time

Decay_Time sets how many seconds a vehicle can sit neglected before the server decides it has been abandoned. "Neglected" here means the vehicle has not been interacted with -- nobody entered it, nobody repaired it, nobody drove it. The clock resets each time a player interacts with the vehicle.

While the neglect timer is running, the vehicle takes no decay damage. The server is simply counting seconds. Once the timer passes the Decay_Time threshold, the second stage begins.

Set this to a high value if you want players to be able to park vehicles for long periods without punishment. Set it to a low value if you want abandoned vehicles to degrade quickly and free up space for fresh spawns.

Decay_Damage_Per_Second

Once the neglect timer has exceeded Decay_Time seconds, the server starts applying Decay_Damage_Per_Second points of damage to the vehicle every second. This damage continues until the vehicle is destroyed or until a player interacts with it again, which resets the neglect timer and stops the damage.

The two keys work as a pair. If Decay_Time is 600 (10 minutes) and Decay_Damage_Per_Second is 1, a vehicle left alone for more than 10 minutes will begin losing 1 health per second until someone returns to it. A low damage rate gives players time to notice and rescue an abandoned vehicle; a high rate clears the map of wrecks quickly.

If you set Decay_Time to a very large number and Decay_Damage_Per_Second to a very small number, decay is effectively disabled. If you set Decay_Time to 0, vehicles begin decaying immediately after they are last touched.

Vehicle spawn conditions

When a vehicle spawns on the map, the server rolls several dice to determine what state it appears in. Four keys control the odds and the starting values.

Has_Battery_Chance

A vehicle needs a battery to start its engine. Has_Battery_Chance is a decimal between 0 and 1 that represents the probability a freshly spawned vehicle will have a battery already installed.

A value of 1.0 means every vehicle that spawns will have a battery. A value of 0.5 means about half of them will. A value of 0 means no spawned vehicle will ever have a battery -- players will need to find or craft one and install it themselves before the vehicle can be driven.

This key controls the presence of a battery, not its charge level. The charge is handled separately by the next two keys.

Min_Battery_Charge and Max_Battery_Charge

If a vehicle does spawn with a battery (the Has_Battery_Chance roll succeeded), the server then picks a random charge level for that battery. The charge is expressed as a decimal between 0 and 1, where 1 represents a fully charged battery.

Min_Battery_Charge sets the lowest possible charge the battery can have. Max_Battery_Charge sets the highest. The server picks a value somewhere between these two bounds on every spawn.

Setting both to 1.0 means every vehicle that spawns with a battery gets a full one. Setting Min_Battery_Charge to 0.1 and Max_Battery_Charge to 0.3 means spawned batteries will always be nearly dead, which forces players to either charge them or scavenge a replacement. Setting Min_Battery_Charge higher than Max_Battery_Charge is an invalid state -- the server expects the minimum to be less than or equal to the maximum.

If Has_Battery_Chance is 0, these two keys have no effect because no vehicle ever spawns with a battery to charge in the first place.

Has_Tire_Chance

Every wheel on a vehicle is a separate slot, and each one needs a tire. Has_Tire_Chance is a decimal between 0 and 1 that the server checks independently for each wheel when a vehicle spawns.

A value of 1.0 means every wheel gets a tire. A value of 0.5 means each wheel has a 50-50 chance. A value of 0 means no wheels get tires and the vehicle spawns on its rims, unable to drive until players find and attach tires.

Because the check runs per-wheel, a four-wheeled vehicle at a Has_Tire_Chance of 0.8 will sometimes spawn with three tires and one missing. That is by design. It creates variety in what players find in the world and gives them a reason to carry a spare tire or two when they go vehicle hunting.

Respawn and safezone behaviour

Two keys govern what happens to a vehicle after it is destroyed or after it has been sitting locked in a safezone for too long.

Respawn_Time

When a vehicle explodes or ends up stuck underwater, it does not disappear immediately. The wrecked or submerged vehicle remains on the map for Respawn_Time seconds before the server removes it.

This delay serves two purposes. First, it gives players a window to loot the wreckage before it vanishes. Second, it prevents the vehicle's spawn point from immediately producing a replacement, which keeps the map population from feeling chaotic after a firefight.

Only after Respawn_Time seconds have passed does the server despawn the vehicle and mark its spawn point as eligible to produce a new one. Setting this to a low value makes wrecks disappear quickly and replacements appear sooner. Setting it high leaves wrecks on the map longer, which can create interesting cover during extended fights but also delays fresh spawns.

Unlocked_After_Seconds_In_Safezone

Safezones are areas of the map where PvP combat is disabled and players cannot take damage. Vehicles inside a safezone can be locked by a player to prevent others from taking them.

Unlocked_After_Seconds_In_Safezone is the grace period the server gives a locked vehicle that is sitting empty inside a safezone. After this many seconds pass with no player inside the locked vehicle, the server automatically removes the lock. Anyone can then enter and drive it.

This key exists to prevent a player from locking a vehicle inside a safezone and then logging off, effectively removing that vehicle from circulation indefinitely while being immune to theft. The auto-unlock ensures that unattended safezone vehicles eventually become available again.

If you set this to 0, locked vehicles in safezones unlock the moment the driver exits. If you set it to a very large number, the auto-unlock is effectively disabled and vehicles can remain locked in safezones for as long as the owner wants.

Damage multipliers

Five keys control how much damage vehicles receive from different sources. Each one is a multiplier applied to the incoming damage before it is subtracted from the vehicle's health.

A multiplier of 1.0 means the vehicle takes normal damage from that source. A multiplier below 1.0 means the vehicle is tougher against that source. A multiplier above 1.0 means the vehicle is more vulnerable to it. A multiplier of 0 means the vehicle is completely immune to damage from that source.

Armor_Multiplier

Armor_Multiplier is the broadest damage scalar. It applies to all damage dealt to vehicles, regardless of source. If you set it to 0.5, every source of damage is cut in half. If you set it to 2.0, vehicles take double damage from everything except the special cases handled by the other multipliers below.

This is the single most impactful key in the Vehicles section for controlling how durable vehicles feel on your server. A low value makes vehicles into rolling fortresses. A high value makes them fragile and encourages players to stay on foot.

Child_Explosion_Armor_Multiplier

Vehicles can have barricades attached to them, and those barricades can sometimes block an incoming explosion. When a barricade absorbs the blast instead of the vehicle itself, the damage the vehicle does receive is scaled by Child_Explosion_Armor_Multiplier.

A value of 0.5 means that when a barricade blocks an explosion, the vehicle only takes half the explosion damage it otherwise would. This key only applies when a barricade successfully obstructs the blast. It does not affect explosions that hit the vehicle directly with no barricade in between.

Think of it as the reward for putting armour plates on your vehicle. A low multiplier makes those plates meaningfully reduce explosion damage. A high multiplier makes them less effective at stopping the blast from reaching the vehicle underneath.

Gun_Lowcal_Damage_Multiplier

Not all guns are created equal in Unturned. The game distinguishes between standard firearms and those tagged as "Heavy Weapon" guns.

Gun_Lowcal_Damage_Multiplier scales the damage vehicles take from every gun that is not flagged as a Heavy Weapon. This covers most rifles, pistols, and submachine guns in the game.

A value of 2.0 means your standard assault rifle deals twice its normal damage to vehicles. A value of 0.1 means small-arms fire barely scratches the paint and players will need to bring heavier ordnance to stop a vehicle.

Gun_Highcal_Damage_Multiplier

Gun_Highcal_Damage_Multiplier is the companion to the low-calibre multiplier. It scales the damage vehicles take specifically from weapons flagged as Heavy Weapons. These are typically things like mounted machine guns, anti-materiel rifles, and other high-powered ordnance.

Because Heavy Weapons are rarer and harder to use than standard firearms, it is common for server owners to set this multiplier higher than the low-calibre one. That way, a player with a heavy weapon has a real advantage against vehicles, while a player with a pistol does not.

The two gun multipliers together let you shape the vehicle-vs-infantry balance. A server where both are high makes vehicles death traps. A server where the low-calibre multiplier is low and the high-calibre multiplier is normal makes vehicles resist small-arms fire while still being threatened by anti-vehicle weapons, which is a common "realism" setup.

Melee_Damage_Multiplier

This multiplier applies to damage from melee weapons and from unarmed attacks (fists). A value of 2.0 means every whack with a baseball bat does double its normal damage to a vehicle. A value of 0 means vehicles are immune to melee attacks entirely.

In vanilla play, melee damage to vehicles is typically low -- you cannot realistically punch a truck to death. Server owners who run PvE or roleplay servers sometimes raise this multiplier to make melee a viable option for clearing abandoned wrecks without spending ammunition.

Repair multiplier

Melee_Repair_Multiplier

Melee_Repair_Multiplier controls how effective repair-focused melee items are at restoring vehicle health. The Blowtorch is the most common example, but any melee item that restores health to a vehicle uses this multiplier.

A value of 2.0 means repair items restore double their normal amount of hit points. A value of 0.5 means they restore half. A value of 0 makes repair items do nothing at all to vehicles.

This key is separate from Melee_Damage_Multiplier so you can tune repair and damage independently. You might want melee attacks to do almost nothing to vehicles (low damage multiplier) while the Blowtorch remains highly effective at fixing them (high repair multiplier). Or you might want repairs to be slow and deliberate, forcing players to protect their vehicles because fixing them is a serious time investment.

Setting this multiplier very high makes repair items function as near-instant full heals, which reduces the consequences of taking damage. Setting it very low makes damage feel permanent and encourages players to find a fresh vehicle rather than nursing a damaged one back to health.

Vehicle population limits

Six keys determine how many vehicles can exist on the map at once and how aggressively the server fills empty spawn points. They are split into per-map-size caps and a global minimum.

Max_Instances_Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, and Insane

Unturned maps are classified by size: Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, and Insane. Each size category gets its own cap on naturally-spawned vehicles. The server checks which size category the current level belongs to and enforces the matching cap.

Max_Instances_Tiny limits vehicles on Tiny maps. Max_Instances_Small limits vehicles on Small maps, and so on through Max_Instances_Insane.

"Natural vehicles" means vehicles that the level itself placed -- vehicles that spawn at designated spawn points on the map. Vehicles purchased from vendors or spawned by admin commands do not count against these caps. The caps exist to prevent every single spawn point from being populated at once, which would flood the map with more vehicles than players could ever use.

When the number of natural vehicles on the map reaches the cap, the server stops spawning new ones. It resumes spawning once the count drops below the cap, whether through destruction, despawning, or a player driving a vehicle into the ocean.

A cap of 0 for a given map size means the server will never spawn natural vehicles on maps of that size. Players would still be able to buy vehicles from vendors or have them spawned by an admin, but the map itself would be empty of vehicles.

Min_Natural_Vehicles

Min_Natural_Vehicles sets a floor. If fewer than this many natural vehicles exist on the map, the server considers the population critically low and actively works to spawn more until the count meets or exceeds this minimum.

The critical detail: this value is clamped against the map-size cap. The server uses whichever number is lower -- Min_Natural_Vehicles or the relevant Max_Instances_* key. If your minimum is 10 but the Tiny map cap is 4, the effective minimum is 4. The server will never try to exceed its own cap to satisfy the minimum.

This key is useful for keeping a baseline of vehicles available at all times. If your map has 20 spawn points and your cap is 30, you could set Min_Natural_Vehicles to 15. The server will make sure there are always at least 15 vehicles on the map, respawning them as needed, while still leaving headroom for up to 15 more beyond the minimum.

If you set Min_Natural_Vehicles higher than Max_Instances_* for the current map size, the cap wins. The server uses the lower of the two values, so the effective minimum is the cap.

How these keys interact

The keys in the Vehicles section are not independent. Several of them form interlocking systems that produce unexpected behaviour when tuned without considering their companions.

Decay and population. If Decay_Time is short and Decay_Damage_Per_Second is high, vehicles die quickly. That frees spawn points faster, which means the server respawns vehicles more aggressively to stay above Min_Natural_Vehicles. A server with aggressive decay and a high minimum will churn through vehicles rapidly. A server with aggressive decay and a low minimum will feel empty most of the time because vehicles die faster than they are replaced.

Battery odds and charge range. A high Has_Battery_Chance combined with a low Min_Battery_Charge and Max_Battery_Charge means most vehicles have a battery, but almost all of them are nearly dead. Players can start the engine but will not get far before they need a charge. A low Has_Battery_Chance combined with high charge bounds means batteries are rare but powerful when found. Both combinations are valid; they produce different scavenging experiences.

Damage multipliers and repair. If Armor_Multiplier is high but Melee_Repair_Multiplier is also high, vehicles take a beating but can be patched up quickly. If both are low, vehicles are tough but irreparable, so damage accumulates permanently and every vehicle has a finite lifespan. If the gun multipliers are low but the melee multiplier is high, vehicles shrug off bullets but a player with a baseball bat can break them -- an unusual setup but one that might suit a server with restricted firearms.

Safezone timeout and population. A long Unlocked_After_Seconds_In_Safezone means vehicles can sit locked in safezones for extended periods. Those vehicles still count against the Max_Instances_* cap and toward Min_Natural_Vehicles, even though nobody can use them. This reduces the effective number of available vehicles on the map. If your server feels sparse but your caps look generous, check whether vehicles are piling up locked in safezones.

Canned Beans

No vehicle in Unturned drops Canned Beans, and no key in the Vehicles section references them. The Canned Beans economy -- documented in full at /lore/canned-beans-lore -- operates entirely through loot tables and vendor inventories, neither of which this section of Config.json touches.

That said, the absence of beans in this section is worth noting. Every other configurable aspect of vehicle behaviour on a dedicated server is surfaced here: spawn density, decay rate, damage resistance, repair speed. The fact that beans are not among them confirms that the vehicle layer and the food economy are separate systems in the server configuration. You cannot make vehicles drop beans by editing the Vehicles section of Config.json. That belongs to the loot table configuration, which is out of scope here.

If you came to this article hoping to make every wreck drop a can of beans, you are in the wrong config section. The /lore/canned-beans-lore page covers the history, the data, and the configuration surfaces that actually control bean distribution.

Practical use for server owners

The Vehicles section is one of the most frequently edited parts of Config.json because vehicle behaviour directly shapes how players experience your server. Here is how to approach it.

Start with the population keys

The population keys (Max_Instances_* and Min_Natural_Vehicles) are the ones players notice first. Too few vehicles and your map feels empty and frustrating, especially on larger maps where travelling on foot between towns takes minutes. Too many vehicles and the map feels cluttered, vehicle spawns lose their value, and server performance can degrade because every vehicle is a physics object the server must simulate.

Test your caps by loading the map, flying around in admin mode, and counting how many vehicles you actually see. The cap is not a guarantee -- it is an upper bound. If your map has 12 spawn points on a Small map and you set Max_Instances_Small to 50, you will never see more than 12 vehicles because there are only 12 places for them to appear.

Min_Natural_Vehicles should be set to a number you can sustain with the spawn points available. If your map has 12 spawn points and you set the minimum to 15, the server will try to keep 15 vehicles alive but will only ever succeed at keeping 12. The effective minimum is capped not just by Max_Instances_* but also by the number of spawn points the map author placed.

Tune damage multipliers as a group

The five damage multipliers (Armor_Multiplier, Child_Explosion_Armor_Multiplier, Gun_Lowcal_Damage_Multiplier, Gun_Highcal_Damage_Multiplier, and Melee_Damage_Multiplier) should be tuned together, not in isolation.

A common pattern is to set Armor_Multiplier to 1.0 (normal baseline), then use the specific multipliers to adjust individual damage sources. For example:

• Vanilla feel. All multipliers at 1.0. Vehicles behave exactly as the game designers intended.

• Vehicles-as-fortresses. Armor_Multiplier at 0.3, Gun_Lowcal_Damage_Multiplier at 0.1, Gun_Highcal_Damage_Multiplier at 0.5. Small-arms fire bounces off, heavy weapons still threaten, but overall vehicles are very durable. Suits a server where vehicles are precious and losing one is a serious setback.

• Fragile vehicles. Armor_Multiplier at 2.0, Gun_Highcal_Damage_Multiplier at 4.0. Vehicles die fast, especially to anti-vehicle weapons. Suits a PvP server where vehicles are tools to be used and discarded rather than assets to be hoarded.

• Melee-only damage. Gun_Lowcal_Damage_Multiplier at 0, Gun_Highcal_Damage_Multiplier at 0, Melee_Damage_Multiplier at 2.0. Guns do nothing to vehicles; you must get up close and personal. An unusual configuration that suits certain roleplay or restricted-weapon servers.

Child_Explosion_Armor_Multiplier is the most situational of the five. It only matters if your server sees frequent use of explosives -- rocket launchers, grenades, placed charges -- and if players routinely attach barricades to their vehicles. On a PvE server where explosives are rare, this key has very little impact regardless of its value.

Adjust decay for your server's activity pattern

Decay settings should match how often your players are online. A server with daily active players can use a short Decay_Time because someone will almost always be around to interact with vehicles. A server with weekend-only players needs a longer Decay_Time so vehicles survive the quiet weekdays.

Decay_Damage_Per_Second sets the urgency once decay begins. A low value (0.1 or 0.5) gives a player who notices their vehicle is decaying plenty of time to reach it and reset the timer. A high value (5 or 10) means a decaying vehicle is a lost vehicle unless someone is standing right next to it when the timer expires.

If you run a creative or building-focused server where vehicles are decoration as much as transportation, set Decay_Time to a very large number and Decay_Damage_Per_Second to 0. This disables decay entirely and vehicles will sit where you park them indefinitely.

Test your spawn condition odds

The battery and tire probabilities (Has_Battery_Chance, Has_Tire_Chance) produce noticeable differences in how players perceive your server's difficulty. The best way to tune them is to set them, spawn a batch of vehicles using admin commands, and check each one to see how many got batteries and how many wheels came with tires. Adjust until the ratio feels right for the scavenging experience you want.

Min_Battery_Charge and Max_Battery_Charge are secondary to Has_Battery_Chance. If only one in ten vehicles gets a battery, the charge range on that battery matters less than the fact that batteries are scarce. Focus on the spawn odds first, then tune the charge bounds to make found batteries feel generous or stingy.

Treat the safezone timeout as a social rule

Unlocked_After_Seconds_In_Safezone is as much a social rule as a mechanical one. On a cooperative PvE server, a generous timeout (a few hours) lets players park at the safezone and do a supply run without worrying about their vehicle being taken. On a PvP server, a short timeout (a few minutes) prevents players from hoarding vehicles in the one place they cannot be contested.

The value you pick tells players what kind of server you are running before they read a single rule in your Discord. A long timeout says "your stuff is safe here." A short timeout says "nothing is safe, not even in town."

Repair multiplier as economy tuning

Melee_Repair_Multiplier affects how players value repair items. A high multiplier makes the Blowtorch a powerful tool worth carrying at all times. A low multiplier makes repairs slow and deliberate, which increases the value of finding a fresh vehicle over fixing a damaged one.

This key interacts with the decay system. If decay damage is high but repair is also fast, a neglected vehicle can be salvaged by a quick-thinking player with a Blowtorch. If decay damage is high and repair is slow, a neglected vehicle is functionally dead and should be replaced. Tune these two systems together based on whether you want players to save vehicles or cycle through them.

Document your values

Before you make changes to the Vehicles section, write down the current values. These 20 keys interact in ways that are not always obvious in testing. You may find that a change you made weeks ago to Decay_Time is causing vehicles to pile up, or that raising Gun_Lowcal_Damage_Multiplier has made vehicles so fragile that nobody bothers using them. Having a record of what you changed and when makes it much easier to undo a bad decision.

Start with small adjustments. Change one group at a time, playtest it, and then move on to the next group. Changing the population caps, damage multipliers, and decay rates all at once makes it hard to tell which change caused the behaviour you are seeing in-game. Methodical tuning produces better results than guessing.