Sat­is­fac­to­ry Dedicated Server: Hosting and Setup

If you want to enjoy maximum freedom and make your game world available to the public, a Sat­is­fac­to­ry dedicated server is the best solution. It is best to create a Sat­is­fac­to­ry server on ex­ter­nal­ly rented hardware. In­stal­la­tion and setup are mostly done via the Steam or Epic Games client.

The open-world con­struc­tion game Sat­is­fac­to­ry has been available as an early access game since March 19, 2019. You have to explore distant planets, mine resources, and build the most efficient factory possible. In co­op­er­a­tive game play, you can ex­pe­ri­ence this adventure with others. Hosting and setting up your own Sat­is­fac­to­ry server with a provider is not that com­pli­cat­ed. We have sum­ma­rized the most important steps.

If you want to play Sat­is­fac­to­ry online with friends and ac­quain­tances, you basically have two options: You can either create a private session that runs on your own PC or host a game session on a dedicated server.

The advantage of Sat­is­fac­to­ry server hosting on your own device is that you don’t need any ad­di­tion­al hardware. However, you will have to provide ad­di­tion­al resources for the private game as soon as more players join - so your PC will be chal­lenged sig­nif­i­cant­ly more than in single player mode. The same applies to your Internet access. Probably the biggest dis­ad­van­tage of a privately hosted game is the fact that it is only available to all users when you are online and have started the game world.

The more players you want to grant access to and enable them to enter the Sat­is­fac­to­ry game world at any time, the more relevant an ex­ter­nal­ly hosted Sat­is­fac­to­ry server becomes. In this case, you not only have powerful server and broadband resources, but also the option of making the Sat­is­fac­to­ry server publicly ac­ces­si­ble (via IP address).

The re­quire­ments that a Sat­is­fac­to­ry server places on the un­der­ly­ing hardware basically depend on the number of players that connect to the server at the same time. However, it should be mentioned at this point that Sat­is­fac­to­ry - at least in its current state - is designed for a maximum of four people in mul­ti­play­er mode. Game worlds for more than four players can be created via con­fig­u­ra­tion, but the Swedish developer team Coffee Stain Studios is not re­spon­si­ble for the resulting per­for­mance.

Based on the in­for­ma­tion in the official Sat­is­fac­to­ry Wiki as well as the re­quire­ments for the official dedicated server tool in the Epic Games Store, the following basic system re­quire­ments are needed:

• CPU (processor): AMD or Intel (4 Core) from 3.4 GHz onwards; powerful single-core per­for­mance preferred
• RAM (memory): 6 gigabyte RAM for 1–4 players, 8 gigabyte or more for larger storage files or more than 4 players
• Hard disk space: 10-15 gigabytes for the Sat­is­fac­to­ry server software; ad­di­tion­al space for saved game(s) or optional mods

In addition to the computing power for the Sat­is­fac­to­ry server, you must also include the computing load of the operating system in your planning. In principle, you can choose between common Unix/Linux dis­tri­b­u­tions such as Ubuntu, however, de­vel­op­ers recommend a Windows server operating system. For Windows Server 2019, the following ad­di­tion­al re­quire­ments would therefore be needed, for example:

• 1.4 GHz processor (64-bit)
• 512 MB or 2 GB memory (without or with graphical user interface)
• 32 or 36 GB hard disk space (without or with graphical user interface)

You can rent hardware for your own gaming server from various providers. However, the wide selection of plans and prices can be over­whelm­ing. You don’t want to book too little or too much per­for­mance and obviously want to avoid un­nec­es­sary costs.

With IONOS you can choose between the following three server types, which also have different plans:

• vServer: With a vServer (also known as Virtual Private Server or VPS), you get access to vir­tu­al­ized resources that you share with other customers, but there’s no need to worry about per­for­mance being affected. You are billed monthly at a fixed price.
• Cloud server: The cloud server packages from IONOS also work with vir­tu­al­ized resources. However, since this model is billed by the minute, you only pay for the service you actually need.
• Dedicated server: With a dedicated server from IONOS you get hardware that is entirely reserved for you. This type of server is also char­ac­ter­ized by high single-core power, but this is also reflected in the price.

In the following table we have compiled some possible scenarios for your Sat­is­fac­to­ry server and assigned the matching server models and IONOS plans.

Once you have decided on a hosting en­vi­ron­ment and have the access data ready, you can start setting up your Sat­is­fac­to­ry server. In the following tutorial, we have sum­ma­rized the most important steps - exemplary for IONOS customers (vServer, cloud server, dedicated server). The in­stal­la­tion of the server software is done via Steam.

Click on the link and keep the suggested option “Open with Remote Desktop Con­nec­tion”. The first time you connect, you will receive a security warning. Continue with the setup process by clicking on “Connect”.

Finally, type in the login data for your Sat­is­fac­to­ry server. To do this, click on “More options” and “Use another account” in the dialog. The first time you connect, you must then classify the server’s cer­tifi­cate as trust­wor­thy.

After the in­stal­la­tion is complete, you can start the Sat­is­fac­to­ry server at the same place in the Steam client. To do this, simply press the “Start” button that is now displayed. Steam will then au­to­mat­i­cal­ly check whether there are updates for the server software and whether all required tools and runtimes are installed on your system. If an ap­pli­ca­tion such as the Microsoft Visual C++ runtime is missing, the client au­to­mat­i­cal­ly offers the option to install the missing com­po­nents.

The dedicated server software will then have to be updated, after which you can restart the server.

The next step is to activate the newly created Sat­is­fac­to­ry server via the Server Manager in the game client. As mentioned, you need to use the ex­per­i­men­tal version of the game for this (right-click on the game in the Steam client then > “Prop­er­ties” > “Betas” > “ex­per­i­men­tal – ex­per­i­men­tal”).

Of course, you can also configure your Sat­is­fac­to­ry dedicated server in­di­vid­u­al­ly after creating it. For example, it is possible to exceed the fixed limit of four players. To do this, you need to adjust the con­fig­u­ra­tion file Game.ini. By default, you will find this file in the following directory (for “Username”, add the cor­re­spond­ing username):

Open the file and add the following script at the end, inserting the desired number of players instead of “X” (value of up to 127 possible):

Save the file and restart your Sat­is­fac­to­ry server to apply the change.

Other useful server con­fig­u­ra­tions, such as changing the memory interval or the timeout limit, are described in the Con­fig­u­ra­tion article in the official Sat­is­fac­to­ry Wiki.