Setting up EssentialsX: homes, warps, kits and spawn

EssentialsX is the plugin almost every Paper server installs first. It adds the everyday commands players expect — /home, /spawn, /tpa, warps, kits, private messages, nicknames — plus a simple economy. It is also the plugin people most often install and then find “does not work”, because players have none of its permissions until you give them. This guide covers both halves.

Pick the modules

EssentialsX is split into separate jars. You always need the core; the rest are optional:

• EssentialsX — the core. Homes, teleports, warps, kits, messaging, economy.
• EssentialsX Chat — chat formatting, including showing prefixes from your permissions plugin.
• EssentialsX Spawn — /spawn, /setspawn, and where new players appear. Install it if you want a spawn point different from the world’s.
• EssentialsX Discord — a simple bridge between game chat and a Discord channel.
• EssentialsX Protect and AntiBuild — older, blunt protection tools. Most servers use a claims plugin instead.

Download them all from the official EssentialsX site, at the same version, for your Minecraft version. Mixed versions between the modules are a common source of errors. Upload to plugins and restart.

Give players permissions

Operators can use every command. Everyone else gets almost nothing until you grant it. With LuckPerms, a good starting set for the default group is:

• essentials.home, essentials.sethome, essentials.delhome — homes.
• essentials.tpa, essentials.tpaccept, essentials.tpdeny, essentials.tpahere — teleport requests.
• essentials.spawn — /spawn, with EssentialsX Spawn installed.
• essentials.warp and essentials.warp.list — use and list warps.
• essentials.msg, essentials.reply — private messages.
• essentials.kit plus essentials.kits.starter — use the kit called “starter”.

Keep essentials.back (return to where you died or last teleported from), essentials.fly, essentials.god and essentials.gamemode for trusted groups or admins. /back especially changes how dangerous survival feels.

Homes

A player sets a home with /sethome (or /sethome base for a named one) and returns with /home. How many each player can have is set in plugins/Essentials/config.yml:

sethome-multiple: then one line per tier, for example default: 2 and member: 4. A player gets the tier matching the permission essentials.sethome.multiple.member, so give that node to your member group.

Teleport delay and cooldown

By default, teleports are instant, which makes escaping a fight trivial. In config.yml:

• teleport-delay: 3 — seconds the player must stand still before a teleport happens. Moving cancels it.
• teleport-cooldown: 30 — seconds before the same player can teleport again.

Admins can bypass both with essentials.teleport.timer.bypass and essentials.teleport.cooldown.bypass.

Warps

Stand where you want a warp and run /setwarp shop. Players then use /warp shop, and /warps lists them. Warps suit shared places — the shop, the nether hub, the event arena — and save everyone from asking for coordinates.

Kits, including a starter kit

Put the items you want in your own inventory and run /createkit starter -1. The number is the delay in seconds before the same player can use the kit again: -1 means once ever, which is right for a starter kit, while 86400 would make a daily kit. Kits are stored in plugins/Essentials/kits.yml.

To hand it to new players automatically, set this in config.yml:

newbies: with kit: starter underneath. A modest starter kit — a stone tool set, some food, a bed — helps new players without making the early game pointless.

Spawn

With EssentialsX Spawn installed, stand at your spawn area and run /setspawn. In config.yml, spawn-on-join: false (the default) sends returning players back to where they logged out; set it to true only if you want everyone to start each session at spawn. respawn-at-home: true sends dead players to their home instead of world spawn when they have no bed.

Economy

EssentialsX has a built-in economy: /balance, /pay, /baltop, and admins can /eco give. Shop and job plugins usually reach it through Vault, a small plugin that lets economy plugins talk to each other — install it if a shop plugin asks for it. If you do not want money on your server at all, you can simply not give players the economy permissions.

Common problems

• “You do not have access to that command.” The player is missing the permission. lp verbose on shows which node the command checked.
• `/spawn` does nothing or is unknown. EssentialsX Spawn is not installed, or is a different version from the core.
• Config changes do not apply. Run /essentials reload or restart, and check config.yml for indentation mistakes — YAML is strict about spaces.
• Two plugins fight over `/home` or `/spawn`. Another plugin registered the same command. /essentials:home calls EssentialsX’s version explicitly; better, remove the duplicate.