Configure your FiveM server in game, without touching a file

01Why configure a FiveM server without files

A typical roleplay server is configured one script at a time. Every resource ships with its own config file, in its author's format: a Lua table here, a JSON file there, startup variables somewhere else. To change a grade salary, you need to know which script owns it, open the right file over FTP or through your host's file manager, edit the value without breaking the syntax, then restart the resource or the whole server.

Every city owner eventually runs into the three problems with this. One missing comma keeps a resource from starting, usually on a busy night. Knowledge ends up with the one or two people who have file access, and the rest of the staff waits on them for every small tweak. And nothing tells you, before you save, who the change will affect: you find out a grade is gone when the players who held it start complaining.

Configuring in game fixes all three at once. You enter the value in a form that checks it, the right to change it is granted screen by screen, and the server works out the impact before it writes anything.

02How Nova's in-game admin panel works

In Nova, a staff member types /admin in game and the panel opens over the city, without leaving the server. Players who are not staff never see it, and the command is not even suggested to them in chat. The panel can be minimized while you go and pick a position in the world, then it comes back exactly where you left it.

1. You change a value on a screen: a grade, a price, a spawn point, a door lock.
2. If the change affects players, the server builds the list of everyone concerned and shows it to you.
3. You confirm. The server checks your permission, validates the value and saves it to your city's database.
4. The new configuration is pushed to every connected player, and to everyone who joins afterwards.
5. The modules apply it right away: most settings take effect without a restart.

03The panel screens, section by section

Once the server is linked to Discord, the panel has 40 screens in seven sections, named after what you do in them. A global search, opened with Ctrl + K, finds a screen, a player, a job or a property without going through the menu.

A few examples of what that changes day to day. A job is created through a wizard, from a template (restaurant, mechanic, medical, police, transport, retail, nightclub, or blank) that preselects its modules. An item specific to your city is created on the Items screen and enters the inventory without a restart. A duty point, a garage or a job armory is placed with the "My position" button, standing where you want it.

04See who is affected before you save

This is the clearest difference from a file. When a change alters players’ state (deleting a grade, lowering a salary, removing boss status, touching the economy multipliers, deleting a gang), the panel does not save straight away. It first asks the server for the list of every player concerned, with the old and the new value for each one.

That list includes connected players, read live, and players who are offline, read from the database and flagged as offline. An absent player will get the change at their next login: it is the same impact, so they appear in the same list. If nobody is affected, the save goes through directly, with no extra window.

05Staff: ranks from Discord, permissions per screen

The panel only opens fully once the server is linked to Nova's Discord bot. Until then, it shows a welcome screen and the Discord screen, where the owner adds the bot to their Discord server and pairs it with a code: no application to create, no token to copy. As soon as the link is made, everything else opens without reconnecting.

• Staff ranks (moderator, senior, admin, head, owner) come from the Discord roles you map in Staff, Discord roles tab. Removing the role on Discord removes the rank in game.
• The owner rank comes from the Discord account linked to your Nova account area, and from nothing else.
• Each screen requires its own capability: a moderator can open the Players screen without the right to ban, and every action keeps its own server-side check.
• The owner moves the minimum rank of each capability in a matrix, within limits set in the code. Destructive capabilities never go below their default rank, and the change first lists the staff accounts that gain or lose the right.
• Quotas cap how many times an action can be repeated within a time window, so a compromised account cannot kick everyone in a minute.

For quick actions in the middle of a scene, a keyboard staff menu (F6 by default) complements the panel: it calls the same actions, with the same permissions and the same journal.

06Track, undo, restore

Settings changed in game need to be reviewable. Every admin action is recorded on the Journal screen, with its author, its date and the value before and after. The same event goes to Discord, in the channel you picked for its family (sanctions, economy, audit…), and logs produced while Discord is unreachable are kept for up to seven days, then sent.

• Bringing a player, teleporting, freezing, changing instance: these actions offer an Undo button for eight seconds, or the U key.
• A price or multiplier change can be restored from the Journal, by a staff member allowed to manage the economy.
• To roll the whole city back, a backup taken from your account area holds the files and every database, panel settings included.

07What stays on the website, and why

The panel sets up the game. Your account area, on the website, sets up the machine: what the server reads once, at startup, and what has no place inside a city. The configuration documentation covers that side.

08First settings for a new city

Here is the order that saves you from going back over your steps, from the first login to opening to players. The guide on starting a GTA RP server covers what comes before, from subscribing to the first start.

1. Link the Discord bot from the welcome screen, with the pairing code.
2. Pick the log channels in Discord: nothing is lost in the meantime, logs are kept.
3. Map your Discord roles to staff ranks, in Staff.
4. Create your jobs from the templates, then their grades, salaries and points around the city.
5. Adjust prices and payroll in Economy, and open shops and dealerships in Stores.
6. Set up player arrival (character creation, spawn points), then the interface and the loading screen.

09What a server configured in game costs

The panel is not an add-on: it is part of every plan, along with hosting, the complete FiveM RP server base, updates and support. NOVA costs €99 a month for 64 players, NOVA+ €149 for 128 players and NOVA INFINITY €229 for 256 players, which grows up to 1,024 players with extra slots. Yearly billing charges ten months for twelve.

Before the first stable version, only the plans that include beta channel access can be bought. You still create your own Cfx key on the Cfx.re portal, as with any host. To launch your city, head to the pricing page.

Frequently asked questions