Host your own Astroneer dedicated server

Can everyone in your group join?

Only if nobody plays on Xbox. According to System Era's FAQ, Xbox consoles are not allowed onto a non-authenticated server that someone runs on their own; they connect through preferred servers only. PS4 players, on the other hand, are free to connect to any Astroneer server, and the do-it-yourself directions are written for Steam.

• Steam on PC: yes, this is the setup System Era describes.
• PS4: yes, by System Era's own answer.
• Xbox: no. Rent a slot from a provider System Era lists as an official partner instead; those partners connect Steam, Windows 10, Xbox and PlayStation players together.
• Anything else: System Era does not say, so try it with one player before you invite everyone.

What you need first

You need Windows. Steam's record for the tool names a single platform, 64-bit Windows, and System Era publishes neither a Linux build nor Linux instructions. Running it on Linux would mean an unofficial workaround that may stop working after any game update, with nobody to fix it.

You will not find a requirements table either: System Era gives no figures for processor, memory or players. So rather than guess, start your world, play a normal session with your group, and look at memory and processor use in Task Manager. That tells you more about your own world than any number we could invent.

System Era gives no warranty and no support for servers you host yourself, and warns that anyone who tampers with the game, or with its online services to dodge unlocks, gets banned. Keep the server stock.

Up and running in an evening

1. Get Valve's SteamCMD for Windows and extract the zip to a new, empty folder.
2. Download the server (app 728470) with the line below. If SteamCMD will not accept the anonymous sign-in for this tool, sign in with your personal Steam login; Steam lists the tool as free to download.
3. Start AstroServer.exe, then close it. If the two settings files are missing, System Era suggests running the server once and closing it.
4. With the server off, fill in the two settings files explained in the next section.
5. Open the port in the Windows firewall, start the server, and connect from the game using your server's address and port.

steamcmd.exe +force_install_dir C:\Astroneer +login anonymous +app_update 728470 +quit

Run that same line again whenever the game updates; Valve's SteamCMD guide uses app_update for both the first download and later updates. Adding validate makes it check and repair every file, which is handy after a crash but slow to do every time.

The two settings files, in plain words

Both files sit in Astro\Saved\Config\WindowsServer inside the install folder. One rule matters more than the rest: System Era says anything you change while the server is running is lost. Turn it off, edit, turn it on.

• Engine.ini, Port under [URL]: the door players knock on. Pick any number; 8777 is the one System Era uses in its example.
• AstroServerSettings.ini, PublicIP: the address your friends type into the game. On a rented server, that is the machine's own IPv4 address.
• OwnerName and OwnerGuid: put your Steam name in the first and 0 in the second. The first person who connects with that Steam name becomes the owner, and the server fills in their id.
• ActiveSaveFileDescriptiveName: which world loads. More on that below.

; Engine.ini
[URL]
Port=8777

; AstroServerSettings.ini (edit these lines, leave the rest)
PublicIP=198.51.100.25
OwnerName=YourSteamName
OwnerGuid=0

Swap 198.51.100.25 for your server's real address. Want to hand the server to a friend? Replace your name in OwnerName with theirs; when they next connect, the server records them as owner.

Letting players in

Setting the port only tells Astroneer where to listen; System Era is clear that the firewall must allow it too. There is no home router between a rented server and your players, so you can skip the port-forwarding step meant for home hosts and just add a Windows firewall rule. System Era does not say whether the game uses UDP or TCP, so we open both. From a Command Prompt run as Administrator:

netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="Astroneer UDP" dir=in action=allow protocol=UDP localport=8777
netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="Astroneer TCP" dir=in action=allow protocol=TCP localport=8777

Changed the port? Change the number in both rules. And allow Remote Desktop only from your own address, since it is the way into the whole machine.

Moving your own world onto the server

You can bring the world you already built. Put the save file in Astro\Saved\SaveGames and make sure its name follows System Era's pattern: the world's name, then the dollar sign, then the date and time with .savegame on the end. In their example the name is MYSAVENAME and the rest reads 2019.05.04-01.20.07.savegame. The date only has to be valid, not true. Then, with the server off, point ActiveSaveFileDescriptiveName at the name portion, everything left of the dollar sign. System Era's page misspells that setting, so change the line already in your file instead of copying theirs.

Keep copies, too. System Era does not describe backups, so here is our suggestion: stop the server now and then, copy both settings files and the SaveGames folder to your own computer or another machine, then start it again. You manage the server; we keep the hardware and the network running.

The server that fits

Our game servers are whole machines chosen by single-thread score, and every processor in its ranked table clears 2,000 on PassMark's single-thread scale (the live list of racked machines below it also holds slower ones, so check the processor against the table). You get the full machine with Administrator access, so the Astroneer server shares it with nobody. Pick the city closest to most of your friends; the locations page gives a test address and a speed test for each city, so you can measure before you order.

• Windows Server, up to 2025, is added at checkout as a paid licence counted per core: flat up to eight cores, per core beyond. It costs the same every month, however far ahead you pay. Our ARM machines cannot run Windows.
• An unmetered port: nothing counts your players' traffic.
• You can open a remote console yourself on our rack servers and blades, and on two cartridge models, the m510 and m710x; the remaining cartridges let you switch power on and off and nothing more, so check before you choose one. Where the console is there, a Windows update that hangs is something you can sort out yourself.
• A server already racked is ready for you roughly 30 minutes once we approve your order. Monthly, no contract.

When another option makes more sense

If your group includes Xbox players, or nobody wants to look after a Windows machine, an official partner slot is the simpler choice, and we would rather say so now. If you also host other Windows-only games, the same kind of machine runs an Empyrion world or an ICARUS server next to this one.

Questions people ask

Is the Astroneer server software free?

Steam lists ASTRONEER Dedicated Server, app 728470, as free to download. You install it from the Tools section of your Steam library or with SteamCMD. The machine and its Windows licence are what you pay for.

My friend on Xbox cannot connect. Why?

System Era does not let Xbox consoles join servers people run themselves. Xbox players can only use preferred servers from the official partners. Your Steam and PS4 friends are not affected.

I changed a setting and it reset. What happened?

The server was probably running while you edited. System Era warns that changes made to the settings files during a run are not kept. Stop the server, make the change again, then start it.

Nobody can reach my server. Where do I start?

Go through four things in order: the server is running, PublicIP is the machine's real public address, Engine.ini has the Port line under a [URL] heading, and the firewall allows that exact port. Each one is a step in System Era's directions.

Can I run it on Linux to avoid the Windows licence?

Not in any way System Era supports. Only 64-bit Windows builds are published, and there are no official Linux instructions. Unofficial workarounds can break with any update.