Stopping Corpses from Despawning So You Can Recover Items Later

Why Corpses Vanish

By default, corpse entities can despawn after a period of time, similar to how dropped items disappear. This is the most common reason players return to their death point and find nothing. Despawn behavior is controlled by the mod's configuration, so the fix is almost always a config change rather than an in-game command.

Changing the Despawn Setting

Open the mod's config file (found in your instance's config folder) and look for an option related to corpse despawn time or whether corpses expire. Setting the despawn time to a very high value, or disabling despawn entirely, keeps the body in the world until you loot it. Save the file and restart the game or reload the config for it to take effect. On a server, the server-side config is what matters, so ask the admin to change it there.

Practical Tips

Avoid dying in the void or lava, since those can still destroy the body regardless of config. If you play on a server, confirm the setting with staff before relying on it, because client-side changes will not help.