How to Change the Global Despawn Timer for Items and XP Orbs

Finding and Editing the Config

After launching the game once with the mod installed, a config file is generated in your config folder. Open it with any text editor. You will see a global despawn value that applies to both items and XP orbs unless you override them per-item. The value is measured in ticks, and the mod accepts anything from 0 up to 72,000 ticks. Remember that 20 ticks equals one second, so the vanilla default of 6,000 ticks works out to five minutes, while the mod's own default of 12,000 ticks is ten minutes.

Applying Your New Value

Change the global number to whatever lifespan you want. If you want items to linger for roughly half an hour, work out the tick count from the 20-ticks-per-second rule and enter it. Setting the value to 0 makes items and orbs never despawn at all, which is useful on creative or building-focused worlds. Once you have saved the file, you do not need to restart the game. Run /cdt reload in chat and the new timing takes effect immediately, so you can test by dropping an item and watching how long it survives.

Things to Watch For

Very large values keep dropped junk around forever and can hurt performance on busy servers, so raise the number gradually and check your world's item count as you go.