How to create a Skyrim Together server

The Skyrim Together Reborn mod lets you enjoy the open-world fantasy game in a mul­ti­play­er setting. If you prefer not to utilize publicly available servers, hosting your own Skyrim Together server is an option, assuming you have the ap­pro­pri­ate hardware setup.

Should you host a Skyrim Together server on your PC or in a data center?

With a self-hosted Skyrim Together server, you gain complete control over the game con­fig­u­ra­tion, including aspects like the number of players, dif­fi­cul­ty level, and the allowance of PvP. To run the dedicated server ap­pli­ca­tion for the required mod­i­fi­ca­tion, Skyrim Together Reborn, you can use your personal device. However, it’s advisable to have a high-end PC and a robust internet con­nec­tion for optimal per­for­mance. Smooth gameplay on the Skyrim Together server may not be possible otherwise. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, hosting the server on your home computer means it’ll be offline as soon as you shut down the device.

To ensure a com­pre­hen­sive mul­ti­play­er ex­pe­ri­ence in the world of Skyrim, it’s highly rec­om­mend­ed to host the server ap­pli­ca­tion with a pro­fes­sion­al provider. By doing so, you can enjoy the ad­van­tages of a dedicated Skyrim server that remains online 24/7 and offers optimal per­for­mance ca­pa­bil­i­ties.

What are the re­quire­ments for a Skyrim Together server?

To host your Skyrim Together server, you must have the Skyrim Special Edition installed on Steam (version 1.6 or higher) along with the Skyrim Together Reborn mod­i­fi­ca­tion. As a result, it’s essential to allocate suf­fi­cient memory for this purpose. The required CPU and memory spec­i­fi­ca­tions for your server primarily depend on the number of users par­tic­i­pat­ing in the shared online adventure and their level of in­ter­ac­tion with the game world.

The minimum re­quire­ments for hosting a Skyrim server are the following:

• Processor (CPU): Dual-Core 2.4 GHz or higher
• Memory (RAM): 3-4 GB RAM
• Hard disk space: 20 GB

In addition to the resources mentioned, it’s important to allocate computing ca­pac­i­ties for the un­der­ly­ing operating system. The preferred choice for hosting a Skyrim Together server is Microsoft server operating systems, as they provide ease of in­stal­la­tion for Steam, Skyrim, and the mod­i­fi­ca­tion. For instance, if using Windows Server 2022, the following ad­di­tion­al resources should be con­sid­ered:

• 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)

What options does IONOS offer for a Skyrim Together server?

If you decide to host a mul­ti­play­er server for Skyrim on rented hardware, you can choose from a large number of providers and plans. Finding out which offer best suits your needs isn’t straight­for­ward.

For example, when hosting a Skyrim Together server with IONOS you can choose from the following three models:

• vServer (VPS): IONOS’ vServers provide vir­tu­al­ized hardware based on a single host system. The service plan you choose is fixed, and you pay a monthly fixed price.
• Cloud Server: IONOS’ cloud servers are built on vir­tu­al­ized resources sourced from multiple host systems. This setup allows for greater flex­i­bil­i­ty as you can easily scale the CPU, RAM, and disk space up or down according to your needs and only pay for the actual power used.
• Dedicated Server: With IONOS’ dedicated server option, you have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to rent dedicated hardware without vir­tu­al­iza­tion. You can select from pre-built setups or customize the power according to your specific re­quire­ments using the “Con­fig­urable Hardware” option.

Step by step to running your Skyrim Together server

Once you’ve chosen an ap­pro­pri­ate hosting solution, you can proceed with in­stalling and con­fig­ur­ing the Skyrim Together server. In the following tutorial, we’ll guide you through the process using IONOS customers (vServer, Cloud Server, or Dedicated Server) as an example. For il­lus­tra­tive purposes, we’ll assume that the operating system of the server being used is Windows Server 2022.

Step 1: Establish remote con­nec­tion to the server

To install and set up an ap­pli­ca­tion such as a Skyrim Together server on rented server hardware, you need a remote con­nec­tion to the hardware. To connect to Windows Server 2022, you can use the Remote Desktop Protocol, enabled by default. As a IONOS customer, you can set up the con­nec­tion using the below protocol from the Cloud Panel:

1. Access the IONOS Customer Center Login Page.
2. Log in using your customer cre­den­tials.
3. Call up the Server & Cloud product category.
4. Select the server plan you’ve booked and navigate to the Access data menu.
5. Click the download link next to the Remote Desktop Con­nec­tion entry.
6. Execute the down­loaded .rdp file and press Connect.
7. Enter the server cre­den­tials (“user” and “initial password” in the cloud panel) and confirm the security cer­tifi­cate to establish the remote con­nec­tion.

Step 2: Install Steam client and Skyrim on the server

To begin, ensure that you have the current Steam edition of Skyrim installed on your server. Download the Steam client from the Steam client download page and install it on your server. Once the in­stal­la­tion is complete, launch the Steam client and log in with the account that owns the Special Edition or An­niver­sary Edition of the game. From the Steam library, install the game.

Step 3: Install Mod Manager and create Skyrim instance

To be able to set up a Skyrim Together server, you’ll need the Skyrim Together Reborn mod­i­fi­ca­tion. You can get this using a manager such as Mod Organizer 2 (MO2), which you install as follows:

1. Navigate to the Nexus Mods reg­is­tra­tion page and create an account. A premium plan isn’t required for this.
2. Open the Mod Organizer 2 page and log in with your “Nexus Mods” account.
3. Click on “Manual” to download the manager.
4. Double-click the down­loaded file to start in­stalling Mod Organizer 2 and initiate in­stal­la­tion using the cor­re­spond­ing wizard.

All mod­i­fi­ca­tions, con­fig­u­ra­tions and profiles for a game are managed in Mod Organizer 2 with the help of a so-called instance. So start the mod manager and create an instance for Skyrim by following the in­struc­tions below:

1. Press Next.
2. Select the option Create a portable instance.
3. Press “Browse” and enter the directory of the installed Skyrim Special Edition.
4. Keep the directory of MO2 and continue with the setup by clicking “Next”.
5. Click on Connect to Nexus and then on Authorize. If no window opens, you’ll need to log in to your pre­vi­ous­ly created “Nexus Mods” account first.
6. After suc­cess­ful linking, press “Next” one more time and finally “Finish”.
7. Skip the tutorial and confirm the handling of nxm links via Yes to complete the initial setup of MO2.

Step 4: Create MO2 profile and separator

The next step is to create an in­di­vid­ual profile in the Mod Manager. To do this, click on the Configure profiles button (business card icon) and then on New. Enter a name for the profile (e.g. “Skyrim Together Reborn”) and click “OK” to create this profile. Remove the checkmark in the line “Use profile-specific Game INI Files”, click “No” in the dialog that pops up and enter the profile as the default profile via “Select”.

You use sep­a­ra­tors in MO2 to organize the mods you have installed. For the purposes of this tutorial, we will only create one separator for the “Reborn” mod, as it’s es­sen­tial­ly the only mod required to set up your own Skyrim Together server.

To create a separator, right-click in the empty area of the main window in the manager. From the menu that appears, select the option Create separator. Name the separator “Utilities” and confirm by clicking “OK”.

Step 5: Delete “Creation Club” files

Following the release of the An­niver­sary Edition, Skyrim, including the Special Edition, was updated to version 1.6. As part of this update, four “Creation Club” contents were in­tro­duced: “Sur­vivalMode”, “Curios”, “AdvDSGS”, and “Fish”. However, these files have been known to cause crashes on Skyrim Together servers. Therefore, it’s advisable to delete the cor­re­spond­ing files from the game directory to ensure smooth operation.

To delete the files, close the mod manager tem­porar­i­ly. Then perform the following steps:

1. Launch the *.\Program Files (x86)\Steam\apps\common\Skyrim Special Edition\Data directory.
2. Select the following eight files: ccBGSSSE001-Fish.bsa, ccBGSSSE001-Fish.esm, ccBGSSSE025-AdvDSGS.bsa, ccBGSSSE025-AdvDSGS.esm, ccBGSSSE037-Curios.bsa, ccBGSSSE037-Curios.esl, ccQDRSSE001-Sur­vivalMode.bsa, ccQDRSSE001-Sur­vivalMode.esl.
3. Press the right mouse button and select “Delete”.

Step 6: Install Address Library for SKSE plugins

One final prepara­to­ry step is to install the Address Library for SKSE plugins. After setting up this library in the Mod Manager, you can proceed to download and install the mul­ti­play­er mod­i­fi­ca­tion, enabling you to set up your own Skyrim Together server using it.

Set up the SKSE address library with Mod Organizer 2 as follows:

1. Launch the Address Library for SKSE Plugins mod page.
2. Scroll to the “All in one (An­niver­sary Edition)” entry and press “MOD MANAGER DOWNLOAD”.
3. Start the free download or the fast premium download by clicking on the cor­re­spond­ing button.
4. Confirm the launch of NXM-Link proxy.
5. Mod organizer 2 will now start au­to­mat­i­cal­ly to download the library. You can find the down­loaded file af­ter­wards under the Downloads tab to the right of the MO2 user interface.
6. Right-click the download file and select the “Install” menu item.
7. Retain the default in­stal­la­tion name by pressing “OK”.
8. Finally, in the left menu window, place a checkmark next to Address Library to activate it.

Step 7: Install Skyrim Together Reborn

Now download the mul­ti­play­er mod by heading to the [Skyrim Together Reborn page on nexusmods.com](https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim­spe­cialedi­tion/mods/69993?tab=files “nexusmods.com: Skyrim Together Reborn”). Download the mod­i­fi­ca­tion via MOD MANAGER DOWNLOAD (like the library in step 6 before).

You’ll find the mul­ti­play­er mod­i­fi­ca­tion in the download tab of Mod Organizer 2. To initiate the in­stal­la­tion process, right-click on it and select “Install”. Confirm the in­stal­la­tion name and ensure you’ve selected “Skyrim Together Reborn” in the left menu window by placing a checkmark next to it.

Step 8: Configure Skyrim Together server

In the directory of the Skyrim mul­ti­play­er mod, you will come across the file STServer.ini among other files. This par­tic­u­lar file serves as the central con­fig­u­ra­tion file for your Skyrim Together server, allowing you to define basic gameplay settings and even set the server name. You can locate the file in the following sub­di­rec­to­ry: .\Modding\MO2\mods\Skyrim Together Reborn\Skyrim­To­geth­er­Re­born\config..

By default, you can retain the con­fig­u­ra­tion settings as they are. However, if you wish for your server to be visible in the public server listing, it’s crucial to change the ‘bAn­nounce­Serv­er’ entry to ‘true’. You can find a com­pre­hen­sive overview of all available options in the STServer.ini entry in the Tilted Online Wiki.

Step 9: Share server ports

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the hosted Skyrim Together server occurs through TCP and UDP port 10578 by default. To make the server ac­ces­si­ble via the internet, it’s necessary to enable these two ports in the firewall settings of your rented server. IONOS customers can do this by utilizing the familiar Cloud Panel:

1. Log in to the IONOS Customer Center Login Page.
2. Select Servers & Cloud and click on the IONOS solution where you’ve installed the Skyrim Together server.
3. Click Network and Firewall Policies in the left side menu in order.
4. Under “Incoming” you can now create a rule for port 10578. Make sure that TCP/UPD is selected as protocol.

Step 10: Launch Skyrim server

Now you’re ready to launch your Skyrim Together server. Access the directory of the mod­i­fi­ca­tion (.\Modding\MO2\mods\Skyrim Together Reborn\Skyrim­To­geth­er­Re­born) and run Skyrim­To­geth­erServ­er.exe. This will open a Command Prompt window au­to­mat­i­cal­ly. Check the first line of the window to confirm if the server started suc­cess­ful­ly. When you wish to shut down the server later, simply close the window.

Step 11: Connect to the server

With the Skyrim Together server up and running, you and your fellow players can now connect to it from your re­spec­tive PCs. To join the server, ensure that you have followed steps 2 to 7 of this tutorial, which involve in­stalling the Skyrim Special Edition and the Skyrim Together Reborn mod­i­fi­ca­tion on your devices. Before starting the game with the mod, it is rec­om­mend­ed to create a new game state without any mod­i­fi­ca­tions and perform the in­tro­duc­to­ry sequence, including character creation. This helps prevent issues that may arise during the scripted opening sequence of the game. Once you have your character ready to start the mul­ti­play­er session, launch Skyrim Together Reborn and then follow these steps to connect to your Skyrim Together server:

1. Start your pre­vi­ous­ly created game status, where you’ve completed the intro and created a character.
2. Press the [F2]-key in the launched game.
3. Select “Connect”.
4. If you’ve made your server publicly available, you can now select Public Servers and search for your “Skyrim Together” server using the search function.
5. If your server is only available privately, enter the IP address with port appended (:10578) and the password you chose to connect to the server.

Once other players have joined the server, press [F2] again and create a group through the Player Manager to explore the world of Skyrim together.