Host your own Abiotic Factor dedicated server, step by step

What you are setting up

You are installing a standalone program that hosts the GATE Cascade facility around the clock, so the world is there whenever someone in your group logs in. The studio announced its hosting guide when the game reached Early Access on Steam, and that guide, a GitHub wiki with sample files, is what this page is built on.

A few things the guide settles for you:

• SteamCMD can sign in anonymously to download the server, so the machine doesn't need a Steam login that owns Abiotic Factor.
• The player limit runs from 1 to 24, but the guide advises staying at six or fewer, and anyone joining a bigger server sees a warning first.
• One launch option restricts the server to Steam, PlayStation or Xbox players. The wiki describes it as disabling crossplay, so we take crossplay to be on otherwise; it does not say so in as many words.
• The guide gives no hardware requirements. Rather than guess, try the server with your real group and keep an eye on its CPU and memory use in Task Manager.

Why it has to be Windows

The guide states it in its first line: the server runs on Windows only, for now. So you will want Windows Server on the machine. With us you can install Windows Server, up to the 2025 release, as a priced licence counted per core: the same price up to eight cores, then per core beyond that. A modest processor keeps that part of the bill small.

You may read about running it on Linux through Wine or Proton. That is a community workaround, not something Deep Field Games offers: the guide merely links Linux users to a write-up by other players in its issue tracker. It may stop working after any game update, and Deep Field Games does not officially support it.

Up and running in an evening

Connect to the machine over Remote Desktop and open PowerShell as administrator. First, give the server an ordinary account of its own and switch on the firewall, before the game is even downloaded. If anything in the server is ever abused, it can only reach what that account can.

$secret = Read-Host -AsSecureString "New password for abfserver"
New-LocalUser -Name abfserver -Password $secret -PasswordNeverExpires
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path C:\steamcmd, C:\AbioticServer
icacls C:\AbioticServer /inheritance:r /grant:r "Administrators:(OI)(CI)F" "SYSTEM:(OI)(CI)F" "abfserver:(OI)(CI)M"
Enable-NetFirewallRule -DisplayGroup "Remote Desktop"
Set-NetFirewallProfile -All -Enabled True -DefaultInboundAction Block
$game = "C:\AbioticServer\AbioticFactor\Binaries\Win64\AbioticFactorServer-Win64-Shipping.exe"
New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "Abiotic Factor (UDP)" -Direction Inbound -Action Allow -Program $game -Protocol UDP -LocalPort 7777,27015
New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "Abiotic Factor (TCP)" -Direction Inbound -Action Allow -Program $game -Protocol TCP -LocalPort 7777,27015

1. Download SteamCMD from Valve and unzip it into C:\steamcmd.
2. From inside C:\steamcmd, download the server with steamcmd +force_install_dir C:\AbioticServer +login anonymous +app_update 2857200 +quit. Add validate before +quit if files ever look damaged; Valve describes it as a check of every file. Valve asks for the install folder to be set before signing in, which is the order used here.
3. Create RunServer.bat in C:\AbioticServer\AbioticFactor\Binaries\Win64 with the contents shown below.
4. Double-click it once as a test, with -log -newconsole added so a log window opens. Join from your own PC, then close it.
5. Make it start by itself with the scheduled task further down.

@echo off
cd /d C:\AbioticServer\AbioticFactor\Binaries\Win64
AbioticFactorServer-Win64-Shipping.exe -useperfthreads -SteamServerName="Night Shift Lab" -MaxServerPlayers=6 -PORT=7777 -QueryPort=27015 -ServerPassword=PickAFreshPassword

Which ports your players need

Your friends connect straight to the game port, 7777 here: since hotfix 0.9.1 dedicated servers no longer use Steam's peer-to-peer connections, so it must be reachable. The query port, 27015, is how Steam advertises your server; the guide calls it not strictly needed but recommended. The guide names no protocol, so the rules above open UDP and TCP on both ports, for the server program only. That is our cautious choice, and because the rules name no address they apply over IPv6 too.

Changing either number? Change the -PORT= or -QueryPort= value and the matching firewall rules together.

Passwords, admins and what stays private

Be aware of one limit before you choose a password: the join password can only be given as -ServerPassword= in the batch file. The guide offers no config file for it, so it is visible in that file and in the running process's command line to administrators and to the abfserver account the server runs under. The folder permissions you set earlier keep it from every other account. Choose a password used nowhere else.

For admins you have a choice. Steam players can be made admins with no password at all: the guide says to close the server, open Saved\SaveGames\Server\Admin.ini under the install folder (we expect it to exist after the server's first launch; the guide does not say when it is created) and add a line such as Moderator=76561190000000000 under [Moderators], using each admin's SteamID64. If some of your admins play on Xbox or PlayStation, that list won't work for them; add -AdminPassword= to the batch file instead, a second password separate from the join one. Without it, nobody can become admin by password.

Starting it on boot, under its own account

A scheduled task runs the batch file as abfserver every time Windows starts, without the -log -newconsole options, so the server runs quietly in the background:

$login = Get-Credential -UserName abfserver -Message "Password for abfserver"
$run = New-ScheduledTaskAction -Execute "C:\AbioticServer\AbioticFactor\Binaries\Win64\RunServer.bat"
$boot = New-ScheduledTaskTrigger -AtStartup
$opts = New-ScheduledTaskSettingsSet -ExecutionTimeLimit ([TimeSpan]::Zero) -RestartCount 3 -RestartInterval (New-TimeSpan -Minutes 1)
Register-ScheduledTask -TaskName AbioticServer -Action $run -Trigger $boot -Settings $opts -User $login.UserName -Password $login.GetNetworkCredential().Password
Start-ScheduledTask -TaskName AbioticServer

# stopping: a hard stop, unsaved progress can be lost
Stop-ScheduledTask -TaskName AbioticServer
Get-Process AbioticFactorServer-Win64-Shipping -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Stop-Process
# repeat until this prints nothing
Get-Process AbioticFactorServer-Win64-Shipping -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

The password goes in through a prompt, never typed into a command. Setting the time limit to zero matters, because by default Task Scheduler ends tasks after three days.

Bringing your co-op world with you

If your group already has a world going in Steam co-op, you don't have to start over. On the PC that hosted it, look in %LocalAppData%\AbioticFactor\Saved\SaveGames; inside, the folder carrying that player's SteamID holds a Worlds folder. Copy the world's folder into Saved\SaveGames\Server\Worlds on the server and either rename it Cascade, the name the server loads by default, or add -WorldSaveName= with its name to the batch file. Worlds from PS5, Xbox or Game Pass can't be moved this way.

Each world folder holds its own SandboxSettings.ini, covering things like difficulty, enemy respawns, hunger speed and whether you lose items on death. We'd make changes only while the server is stopped; the studio suggests this only for confident users, and its wiki explains every option.

Keeping the world safe and current

• Updates: when a patch lands, stop the task and the game together with the stopping lines at the end of the boot-task code above, because ending the task alone leaves the game running. Wait until the last of those lines prints nothing before touching files, run the SteamCMD line again, then start the task. It is a hard stop that can lose progress since the last save, so pick a moment when the server is empty. Patch notes often remind owners to update.
• Built-in backups: up to five copies of the world are kept by the game, with a fresh copy saved every 30 minutes, on dedicated servers as well as at home.
• Your own backups: those copies live on the same disk, so we suggest also copying the whole Saved folder somewhere else from time to time, with the server stopped the same way as for an update.

The server that fits

Our bare metal servers for gaming give your world a whole physical machine on HPE enterprise hardware: nobody else's game shares its processor, and its network port is not shared with any other customer at the access switch. The port is unmetered, 500 Mbps or 1 Gbps depending on the line, so a busy weekend never turns into a bandwidth bill.

Rack servers and blades include a remote console that works even if a firewall change cuts off Remote Desktop. A server already racked is ready about 30 minutes after your order is approved, though payment checks can add time. Choose the city nearest your group among our five locations. For another Windows-only survival game run the same way, see our Sons of the Forest walkthrough.

If you only play now and then, letting one of you host in-game may be enough, and a Steam-hosted world can still be carried over to a server afterwards. There is no contract either way: billing is monthly.

Questions people ask

Do I need to buy the game again for the server?

No. The dedicated server is a separate tool, and the guide's SteamCMD route downloads it with an anonymous login, so you never sign in to Steam with your own account on the server.

Can my friends on Xbox or PlayStation join?

In our reading of the wiki, yes: it describes -PlatformLimited= as the switch that disables crossplay, which suggests crossplay is on until you set it, though it never states the default. If you want one platform only, that option restricts the server to PC, PlayStation or Xbox players. Console players who should be admins need -AdminPassword=, because the SteamID list covers Steam accounts only.

Why can't my friends find the server?

Check first that the game port (7777) and the query port (27015) are open in Windows Firewall and that the server is running. If it still doesn't appear in the in-game list, the studio's hotfix notes suggest closing the game and finding it through Steam's own server browser instead.

Is it safe to raise the limit above six players?

The server accepts up to 24, but the guide does not recommend going past six, and players get a warning popup before they join a bigger server. If you raise it, watch how the server copes with your group.