Icarus Dedicated Server Hosting

What does an Icarus dedicated server give you?

An Icarus dedicated server hosts your prospects on a separate machine, so they no longer depend on any one player's PC. Normally the player who starts a prospect hosts it and the session closes when they leave; on a dedicated server whoever is free can drop in, mine, reinforce the base, and the world is still there when everyone else arrives.

If no prospect is running when the server starts, players land in the server lobby, where a prospect or outpost is selected and launched. With AllowNonAdminsToLaunchProspects enabled, regular players can start missions too, and AllowNonAdminsToDeleteProspects separately controls who can delete saves. That lets you give everyone freedom in a small friend group or keep control with the admins in a larger community.

Icarus is a co-op game built for small teams, and the official server documentation lists a maximum of 8 for MaxPlayers. On an Icarus server the deciding factor is therefore not head count but how long a prospect runs and how big the bases get.

How much RAM does an Icarus server need?

We recommend 8 GB of RAM as the floor, and a crew of one to four players runs short and medium prospects comfortably on Gold 8GB. Memory use grows over time: every newly explored area, placed building piece, crop plot and machine increases the number of objects the server holds in memory.

If you play with a full crew of eight, Platinum 10GB is the better fit, and for prospects that run for weeks or multi-story bases packed with machinery, Diamond 12GB is the safer choice. Groups planning to develop persistent outposts over months will appreciate Emerald 16GB with 6 vCores, which handles late-game load easily. Given Icarus's eight-player design, Xtreme 32GB is more than almost any group needs.

On the CPU side, the Unreal Engine-based Icarus server runs weather, creature behavior and physics on a small number of threads, so high single-thread speed is what counts. For storage, the NVMe allocations starting at 70 GB comfortably cover the server files plus prospect backups, with room to spare for game updates.

Which settings live in ServerSettings.ini?

Icarus server settings are stored in ServerSettings.ini in the Icarus/Saved/Config/WindowsServer folder, under the [/Script/Icarus.DedicatedServerSettings] header. The file is generated the first time the server opens its lobby or a prospect.

SessionName is the session name, JoinPassword the join password, MaxPlayers the player cap and AdminPassword the password required for /AdminLogin. If AdminPassword is empty, anyone can become an admin without a password, so setting a strong one should be your very first change.

Two settings control automatic shutdown behavior. ShutdownIfNotJoinedFor defines what happens when nobody joins a launched prospect for a set time, and ShutdownIfEmptyFor sets how long to wait once the server empties, both in seconds. Each defaults to 300, and a negative value removes the time limit. LoadProspect, CreateProspect and ResumeProspect tell the server which prospect to load at startup; with ResumeProspect enabled it continues from the last prospect played.

Stop the server in the panel before editing, save the file and start it again.

Managing prospects, admin commands and migrating saves

Icarus is administered from the in-game chat. Type /AdminLogin followed by your AdminPassword and you become an admin. KickPlayer removes a player who can rejoin later, BanPlayer blocks them permanently and UnbanPlayer lifts the ban. ReturnToLobby kicks everyone and sends the server back to the lobby, while ReturnToLobbyWhenEmpty switches to the lobby the moment the last player leaves, a polite way to change prospects before maintenance without interrupting anyone. AdminSay broadcasts a message to all players.

Moving a prospect from your own PC to the server is supported. Local saves are JSON files in the Prospects directory inside your Steam ID folder under Icarus/Saved/PlayerData. Upload that file over SFTP into Saved/PlayerData/DedicatedServer/Prospects on the server. Renaming the file or editing its contents can corrupt the save, and the official documentation warns about this explicitly.

Back up both the local file and the server before migrating; the panel's automatic backups also protect the prospect folder on a regular schedule.

How do players join an Icarus server?

Players launch Icarus, pick their character, press Join Session in the HAB menu, flip the toggle in the top right corner to show dedicated servers and select yours. If you set a JoinPassword, they are asked for it on join. The name in the list comes from SessionName, so choose something distinctive your crew can spot easily.

The server uses two ports, one for the game and one for queries. The official defaults are 17777 and 27015, but on TheCrewHost the ports assigned to your server in the panel are the ones that apply. If the server does not appear in the list, check the console to confirm startup completed without errors.

Our most frequent performance tip: on long prospects, back up regularly and keep an eye on the save size. Saves that grow for months take longer to load, and at that point moving up a plan or starting a fresh prospect brings the smoothness back. When the game updates, make sure the server is on the same build, or players will not be able to connect.