Vintage Story admin commands you'll actually use

VS has a deep command system. Most of it you'll never touch. A handful you'll use weekly. This article is that handful, with examples and the reasons each one matters.

Run these from the server console or, in-game, as a player with admin privileges. The /help command lists all available commands; this article is the curated subset.

Player management

Grant admin to a player:

/role <playername> add suadmin

(Role codes vary by your serverconfig.json config. suadmin is the convention but check your roles list.)

Whitelist a player:

/whitelist add <playername>

Remove a player:

/whitelist remove <playername>

Kick:

/kick <playername> "reason"

Ban:

/ban <playername> "reason"

Unban:

/unban <playername>

See who's online:

/list clients

Teleporting

VS does not use Minecraft-style selectors (@p, @e, r:). Targets are named explicitly.

Teleport yourself to a player:

/tp <playername>

Bring a player to your current coordinates:

There is no single-command equivalent. Either teleport yourself to them, or give them your coords and have them run /tp <yourname>.

Teleport to coordinates:

/tp =0 100 =0

(VS uses = prefix for absolute X and Z; Y is absolute by default. ~ is relative.)

Set spawn:

/setspawnhere

This sets the world spawn to your current location.

World inspection

Where am I:

VS shows your coordinates in the client HUD (the "pretty coordinates" box, toggleable in client settings). There is no vanilla server command to print player coords.

Time:

/time

Set time:

/time set day
/time set night
/time set 0700

Weather:

/weather rain
/weather clear
/weather snow

Game mode:

/gamemode survival
/gamemode creative
/gamemode spectator

World management

Save the world:

/autosavenow

Triggers an immediate autosave. Run this before any risky operation.

Reload world configurations:

/reloadconfig

Find a player's coordinates (offline):

There's no direct command for offline players in vanilla. You'd need to inspect the save with external tools. Some admin mods expose this.

Block / item operations

Give an item:

/giveitem game:gear-temporal 3

(VS items use namespaced codes. game: is vanilla. A mod's prefix would replace game:.)

Spawn an entity:

/entity spawnat drifter-normal 1

Spawns one drifter at your current location. The full signature is /entity spawnat <entitytype> <amount>.

Remove dropped items:

/entity remove drop

Useful for spring cleaning. /entity remove <filter> takes other filters too; see /help entity.

Inspection (the actually-useful debugging commands)

Show block info:

VS exposes block info through the client debug overlay rather than a server command. Toggle the overlay client-side; there is no vanilla /blockinfo.

Show chunk info for the chunk you're in:

/chunk cit

Show entity info:

/entity

Subcommands list nearby entities, counts by type, and more. Use /help entity to see the current set.

Performance commands

Inspect tick handlers and tick time:

/debug tickhandlers

The /debug tree exposes the actively-useful telemetry. Tick budget warnings also appear in the server log when ticks run long.

Player count:

/list clients

Backups

Create a backup right now:

/genbackup

Optionally takes a filename: /genbackup myworld-pre-mod-update. Useful before risky changes.

Mods and configuration

Reload a mod's config:

/reloadconfig

(Mod-specific. Some mods have their own reload commands.)

List loaded mods:

/moddb list

Emergencies

Stop the server gracefully:

/stop

Saves the world cleanly. Always prefer this to killing the process.

Restart the server:

VS doesn't have a built-in restart. The standard pattern: stop the server, restart from the OS / systemd. With systemd:

sudo systemctl restart vs-server

Force-unload a chunk:

If a specific chunk is causing crashes (rare), there are commands to unload or reset it. Mod-dependent.

A useful aliases note

VS supports macros and command shortcuts on the client side. You can bind commonly-used commands to keys. Worth setting up if you administer often.

What you'll actually use weekly

In order of frequency:

1. /list clients (see who's online)
2. /tp (move yourself around)
3. /autosavenow (before any risky operation)
4. /time (adjust play conditions)
5. /genbackup (before bigger changes)
6. /role (grant or remove admin)
7. /whitelist add/remove (manage who can join)
8. /chunk cit (inspect a problem chunk)
9. /entity remove drop (periodic cleanup)
10. /moddb list (verify the mod list at a glance)

How often you'll reach for each, visualized

Approximate weekly usage on a running 6 to 10 player VS server:

What you'll rarely need

Most of the rest. VS has 200+ commands. Almost none of them affect day-to-day operations. The ones above are the working set.

Mods that add useful admin commands

Some admin-focused mods worth knowing:

• Server Tools / AdminTools family: adds many missing commands, cleaner permission management.
• Backup Mod: automatic scheduled backups via console.
• WorldEdit-equivalent (sometimes called WorldTransform or similar in VS): copy / paste / fill operations.

These add commands beyond what vanilla VS provides. Worth installing on any serious server.

A short note on script execution

VS supports macros and batch command execution. For repeated admin tasks (regular backup, regular entity cleanup), schedule from your OS rather than from in-game macros. systemd timers or cron are more reliable than in-game scheduling.

Conclusion

VS commands are well-designed but documentation is uneven. This list covers what an admin actually uses. Memorize the top five. Bookmark the rest. The deeper command tree is there when you need it but most of your work happens in the basics.