How to Create a Ships At Sea Server Guide

Renting a Ships At Sea server (the fast way)

1. Head to the SurvivalServers Ships At Sea server hosting page and click Order Now.
2. Pick your player slots (4 to 16), a datacenter near your group, and a billing cycle.
3. Set your Server Title in the Command Center and click Save Settings & Restart. In Ships At Sea, the server name is how players find and join your server, so make it unique and easy to type.

The panel manages the server name, player slots and public description for you, takes scheduled backups of your world, and keeps the server tool up to date automatically. That is important for this game, because the dedicated server updates in lockstep with game hotfixes and an out-of-date server disappears from the in-game server list.

Self-hosting a Ships At Sea server

Misc Games ships a free dedicated server tool on Steam (App ID 3951240, added in update v0.8.6). Requirements and steps:

• A separate machine. The game client and the dedicated server cannot run on the same computer.
• Install the tool with SteamCMD: steamcmd +login anonymous +app_update 3951240 validate +quit (it installs anonymously: no second game copy needed).
• In SAS\Saved\Config\WindowsServer\, rename Example_DedicatedServerSettings.ini to DedicatedServerSettings.ini and set DedicatedServerName, MaxPlayers (up to 16) and DedicatedServerDescription.
• Forward ports 7777 and 15000 (both TCP/UDP) and add matching firewall rules. The ports can be moved with the -port and -beaconport launch switches.
• Start the server with SasServer.exe -log and leave the machine running.
• After every game update, update the server tool too, or updated players will no longer see your server.

The server autosaves the world every 5 minutes under SAS\Saved\SaveGames\. Back that folder up yourself on a schedule.

Prefer to skip the setup? You can rent a Ships At Sea server and be sailing in minutes.