Core Keeper Server Hosting

What does a Core Keeper dedicated server give you?

A Core Keeper dedicated server is a standalone program that keeps your world running without anyone's gaming PC acting as host. In regular co-op, everyone gets kicked the moment the host quits. On a rented server the map stays live in İstanbul, so whoever is online can go hunting in Azeos' Wilderness, fish the Sunken Sea or keep expanding the base around the Core.

The game is built for up to eight players in online co-op, and that is the sweet spot for a server: a persistent world where a handful of friends log in on their own schedules and share chests, farms and machinery. Discord communities also use servers for seasonal event worlds; the seasonOverride setting lets you force themes such as Halloween or Christmas regardless of the calendar.

There is a quieter benefit too. With a dedicated server, the world file lives in exactly one place, so there are no more arguments about whose copy of the save is the latest one.

How much RAM does a Core Keeper server need?

For an eight-player Core Keeper server, the Silver 6GB plan with 6 GB of RAM is comfortably enough. The server itself is light, and memory mostly grows with how much of the map has been explored and how much automation is running. A fresh world uses very little; weeks later, with the map opened up and drills and conveyor belts everywhere, the server is tracking far more objects.

Gold 8GB gives useful headroom for groups running a long mod list or building sprawling factory bases. Anything larger is rarely necessary for this game, and we would rather you spend the difference on something else.

On the CPU side, single-thread speed matters most. You feel it during crowded boss fights or when hundreds of automated machines tick at once, which is where the high clock speed of the Ryzen 9 9950X helps. Storage is a non-issue: .world.gzip files are small, so 60 GB of NVMe leaves plenty of room for worlds and backups.

Which settings live in ServerConfig.json?

Most of a Core Keeper server's behavior is controlled from ServerConfig.json. Stop the server in the panel before editing it, otherwise the file can be rewritten with old values on shutdown.

worldName is the name players see. The world field selects which world slot loads, so you can keep several worlds on one server and switch between them. Leave worldSeed at zero for a random map, or enter a specific number to recreate the same layout a friend has in single player.

For worldMode, 0 means Normal, 1 Hard, 2 Creative and 4 Casual. Hard makes death more punishing, Casual is more forgiving, and Creative is a build-focused world with unlimited materials that can never be converted to a normal one. maxNumberPlayers caps the player count, and gameId stores a permanent join code.

The port, bind IP and server password are read from launch parameters rather than the file. If you need any of those changed, just open a ticket and our team will handle it.

How do you run a modded Core Keeper server?

Core Keeper's official mod support runs through mod.io, but while the game client installs mods in a click, the server needs them placed by hand. Use the manual download link on each mod page, extract the zip into its own named subfolder under CoreKeeperServer_Data/StreamingAssets/Mods, and upload it with SFTP or the panel's file manager.

Every mod folder must contain a ModManifest.json, or the server will not recognize it. Do not install client-only mods such as UI tweaks on the server; they do nothing there and can stop it from starting. Everyone who connects needs the exact same mod versions as the server, so pin your mod list in Discord.

After a big game update, mods can stay broken for a while until their authors catch up. When that happens, take a backup first, then re-enable mods one at a time to find the one causing trouble.

How do friends join a Core Keeper server?

Friends join by opening Join Game from the main menu and entering the server's Game ID. The server writes that ID to the console every time it starts, so copy it from the panel console and pin it in your Discord channel. If you do not want it to change after a reinstall, put a permanent value in the gameId field of ServerConfig.json.

By default the connection is routed through Steam's relay network, which means nobody needs to open ports on their own router. When the server is launched with a specific port, direct connections by IP:port become possible as well, which some communities prefer for faster joins.

The dedicated server works most reliably with the Steam version of the game. If some of your friends play a different storefront version, do a quick connection test on the first night. Characters are stored on each player's own PC, so the same character can visit both a local world and your server.