You’re hovering over a drop, your heart is racing because a Giga is breathing down your neck, and you throw out your best Rex. Instead of a roar, you get a sleeping lizard. It’s flopped on the ground, unconscious, taking extra damage, and basically useless for the next five minutes. We’ve all been there. It’s the "Cryo Sickness" nightmare. If you’re running an Ark: Survival Evolved or Ark: Ascended server, the nitrado cryopod cooldown timer is probably the first thing you want to gut and rebuild.
Honestly, the default settings are kind of a buzzkill for anyone who isn't playing hardcore PvP.
Nitrado makes it look easy, but if you've spent any time in the web interface, you know it can be a labyrinth of checkboxes and "Expert Mode" text files. The cooldown timer isn't just one single button. It’s a combination of how the game perceives "sickness" and how the server handles the interval between deployments. Most players just want to throw their dinos out like Pokemon without the annoying ten-minute wait. Let's get into how you actually change that without breaking your save file.
Why the Cooldown Exists (and Why We Hate It)
Studio Wildcard added Cryo Sickness to prevent people from "popcorning" an entire army in three seconds during a raid. It makes sense for balance. In a competitive environment, being able to instantly deploy twenty Stegos would make defending a base literally impossible. But for those of us playing on private servers with three friends? It's just a time sink.
The nitrado cryopod cooldown timer is tied to a debuff. When you toss a creature out, you get a "Cryopods" status effect on your character. If you toss another one while that timer is active, the second creature gets the sickness. On Nitrado, you have two paths: you can either shorten the timer so it matches the deployment speed, or you can disable the sickness entirely.
Most people prefer disabling it. Why wait thirty seconds when you could wait zero?
Toggling Settings in the Nitrado Web Interface
If you aren't a fan of coding, Nitrado has a "General" settings page. You'll find a checkbox for "Enable Cryopods" usually, but the specific cooldown is often buried. For Ark: Survival Ascended (ASA), things got even weirder. With the introduction of the Cryofridge requirements, the nitrado cryopod cooldown timer became even more restrictive. You now have to be within range of a powered Cryofridge to even deploy a dino on default settings.
To fix this, you need to look for the "Enable Cryopod Sickness" setting. If you're in the basic UI, it's a simple toggle. Uncheck it. Save. Restart.
But wait.
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Sometimes the UI lies to you. I've seen dozens of instances where the checkbox is off, but the dinos are still falling asleep. This is where you have to get your hands dirty in the GameUserSettings.ini file.
Going Into Expert Mode
Don't be scared of Expert Mode. It’s just a text editor.
Once you enable Expert Mode in your Nitrado dashboard, you need to navigate to the GameUserSettings.ini file. Look for the [ServerSettings] header. If you want to kill the cooldown and the sickness entirely, you’re looking for:
EnableExtraStructurePreventionConfig=True (This is often related to the newer ASA rules)
And specifically for the sickness:
EnableCryoSicknessPVP=False
Even if you are on a PVE server, sometimes the game engine defaults to these rules. Setting this to false is the "nuke" option. It removes the debuff entirely. No more sleeping dinos. No more five-minute waits.
The Complexity of Ark: Ascended vs Evolved
It's worth noting that the nitrado cryopod cooldown timer behaves differently depending on which version of the game you are running. In Survival Evolved, it was purely about the debuff on the player. In Ascended, Wildcard added a "cooldown" to the actual fridge and the pod itself.
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They wanted to make the game harder. They succeeded, but mostly they just made it more annoying.
On a Nitrado ASA server, you might notice that even with sickness off, you still can't throw a pod if you've recently been in combat. This is a separate "Combat Timer." There isn't a simple "0 to 100" slider for this in the basic menu. You have to use specific launch arguments or override the script in the Game.ini file.
Common Mistakes When Adjusting Timers
I see people do this all the time: they change the setting, hit save, and then jump straight into the game. It won't work. Nitrado servers need a full cycle to register .ini changes.
- Stop the server completely.
- Wait for the status to say "Stopped."
- Edit your nitrado cryopod cooldown timer settings.
- Save the changes.
- Start the server.
If you edit the files while the server is "Restarting" or "Running," the game will often overwrite your changes with the data currently held in its RAM. It's frustrating to lose twenty minutes of work because of a poorly timed save.
Another big mistake? Confusing "Cooldown" with "Decay."
Cryopods have a battery life. If you're looking to change how long a pod lasts before it "dies" and kills the dino inside, that is an entirely different variable (AllowEmptyCryopodDepletion=False). Make sure you aren't accidentally messing with your pod's energy while trying to fix the deployment speed.
Practical Steps to Optimize Your Server
If you want the best experience for a small group, here is exactly what I recommend for your Nitrado config.
First, disable the "Cryofridge Requirement." This was a change made in ASA that prevents you from throwing dinos unless a fridge is nearby. It ruins exploration. In your GameUserSettings.ini, add DisableCryopodFridgeRequirement=True.
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Second, address the nitrado cryopod cooldown timer by setting EnableCryoSicknessPVP=False. This ensures that even if you're throwing out a whole fleet of Argents to carry metal, none of them will go into a coma.
Third, if you actually want a cooldown but just want it to be shorter (say, 30 seconds instead of 5 minutes), you'll need to look at the CryopodSummonCooldowntime variable. This is more advanced and requires adding lines to the Game.ini rather than the GameUserSettings.ini.
The Expert's Script
For those who want to copy-paste and be done with it, put this in your GameUserSettings.ini under [ServerSettings]:
EnableCryoSicknessPVP=FalseDisableCryopodEnemyCheck=TrueDisableCryopodFridgeRequirement=True
The DisableCryopodEnemyCheck is a lifesaver. It allows you to pod up your tames even if there’s a hostile raptor nearby. Without this, the nitrado cryopod cooldown timer feels twice as long because the game constantly resets it whenever you’re "in danger."
Dealing with the "Waiting for Publication" Bug
Sometimes, Nitrado servers get stuck. You change the timer, you save, and nothing happens. This is usually a sync issue between the Nitrado web interface and the actual server hardware. If your nitrado cryopod cooldown timer isn't updating, try the "Force Update" button or, in extreme cases, reinstall the Open Source version of the server files through the Nitrado "Switch Game" menu (though back up your save first!).
It’s also possible that a mod is overriding your settings. If you’re using "Dino+ " or "Super Structures," those mods have their own internal configs for cryopods. Check your scriptcommand settings if you have mods installed, as they will ignore whatever you put in the standard Nitrado menus.
Final Summary of Actionable Steps
To get your server running smoothly, stop your server and enter Expert Mode. Navigate to your GameUserSettings.ini and manually insert EnableCryoSicknessPVP=False to kill the sleep mechanic. If you are on Ark: Ascended, you absolutely must add DisableCryopodFridgeRequirement=True unless you want to carry a generator and fridge everywhere you go. Save these changes while the server is fully stopped, then reboot. Always test with a "junk" dino first—don't throw out your level 450 Mutation Rex to test if the sickness is gone, just in case a rogue setting is still active.
Check your "Multipliers" section too; sometimes a global "Cooldown Multiplier" can accidentally stretch your cryopod wait times to hours if it's set too high for other game mechanics. Keeping these values lean and specific is the only way to keep the game fun. After you've confirmed the settings work, make a backup of your .ini files locally on your computer. Nitrado updates have a habit of occasionally wiping custom strings during major game patches.