Polls

Polls puts a quick show of hands in your server chat. Post a question with up to nine choices, let every player answer with one number, and get a counted result the moment the clock runs out.

Polls is a light voting plugin for ARK Survival Ascended servers. Staff type one line to start a poll, players vote with a number, and the winner shows in chat and on Discord. Live counts stay hidden by default so early votes do not sway the rest, a poll can auto close on a timer, and the last few polls are kept on file so anyone can look back. There is no database to set up.

What Polls Does

• One line to start: staff run /poll start Question | Choice one | Choice two and the poll goes out to the whole server at once.
• Vote with a number: players type /vote 1 to pick choice one. One vote per player, and a later vote just replaces the old one.
• Hidden counts by default: with ShowLiveCounts off, players see how many have voted but not for what, so early votes do not sway the rest. Flip it on to show live bars.
• Auto end timer: a poll closes on its own after AutoEndMinutes, and WarnBeforeMinutes sends a heads up before it shuts. Set the timer to 0 to run until staff close it by hand.
• Plain result bars: results show as clean ASCII bars like [####------] 40% (4) with the winner called out, so they read fine in game and on Discord.
• Choice cap: MaxChoices keeps a poll at 9 choices or fewer, so every choice has a single digit to vote for.
• Poll history: finished polls are kept on file (HistoryKept) and any player can pull up the last one with /poll last.
• Paid player polls: set PlayerStartCost above 0 and any player can start a poll by paying ArkShop points. Leave it at 0 to keep starting staff only.
• Staff gate: starting and ending a poll is locked to a Permissions node, and the trusted server console can always end one.
• Discord posts: turn on the webhook and Polls posts the question when a poll opens and the full results when it ends.
• Survives a restart: the open poll, its votes, and the history are saved, so a restart keeps them. A poll whose end time passed while the server was down closes on the next tick.

Poll commands

Both chat commands are read from config.json, so you can rename /poll and /vote there or shut them off.

For the server console and RCON:

Who Can Run a Poll

The staff gate is fail closed. If Permissions.dll is off or not installed, no player passes the check, so run start and end from the server console or RCON, or set PlayerStartCost to let players pay to start.

Server Install

You need:

• AsaApi v2.01 or newer
• Windows server
• Permissions, optional, works without it (staff commands then run from the console)
• ArkShop, optional, works without it (only needed for paid player polls)
• Discord webhook, optional, off by default

Then:

1. Grab the zip and unpack it.
2. Put the Polls folder into ArkApi/Plugins/. Keep the folder name as it is, since AsaApi only loads a plugin whose folder carries the same name as its DLL.
3. Open config.json and set your commands, timer, and Discord webhook.
4. Restart the server.
5. Watch ArkApi.log for the loaded line to know it came up clean.

The Config

Every key in config.json has a full write up on our docs page. If you would rather click than type JSON, the config editor changes the file right in your browser.

Frequent Questions

Can two polls run at the same time? No. Polls keeps one poll open at a time. A second start is refused while one is running. Close the open poll with /poll end or the Polls.End console command, then start the next.

Can players start their own polls? Yes, if you let them. By default only staff with the Polls.Manage node can start a poll. Set PlayerStartCost above 0 and any player can start one by paying that many ArkShop points. Polls charges the points up front and only sells the start if they can pay.

What happens to a poll when the server restarts? Nothing is lost. The open poll, every vote, and the history are written to disk, so a restart brings them all back. If the end time passed while the server was down, the poll closes and posts its result on the first tick after boot.

Can I hide the vote counts while a poll is open? Yes, and Polls hides them by default. With ShowLiveCounts off, players see how many have voted but not for what, so early votes do not sway the rest. Flip it to true if you want live bars for everyone.

Does Polls need ArkShop or a database? No. Polls runs on its own with no database to set up. ArkShop is only used if you set PlayerStartCost above 0 to let players pay points to start a poll. Discord is optional too, so you can keep everything in game if you want.

How do I get Polls onto my server? Unzip the download and place the Polls folder in ArkApi/Plugins/. Leave the folder name alone, because AsaApi matches it against the DLL name inside. Set your options in config.json and restart. The download has no hot reload file, so a restart is the way to bring Polls up the first time.

Getting Help

Stuck on a step, or did something break? Ask in the Discord and I will sort it out with you: https://discord.gg/8GGaEzWk9p

Polls v0.0.4