Need help with Dedicated Server Specs

[Jounas]

Hi,

 

I have a need to host a DST dedicated server, and I'm looking for an advice on server specs.

 

- Server should be able to host at least 6 players. Other preferred player limits could be 16, 32 or 64 concurrent players.

 

- Tickrate does not need to be overkill, but it has to provide good gameplay experience. (Is tickrate of 30 enough? Can I do with 15? What impact does this have on the server load & network speed?)

 

- Server needs to be able to host a world, that is big enough, so that given maximum number of players can roam in it for two hours of IRL time, non-stop. (It shouldn't feel too small or limited. Re-starting game with a new map is OK, if a single world will not be big enough.)

 

- Can I run DST server in a virtualized environement, or do I need to have a physical server?

 

 

Here's the specs I'm looking answers for:

 

- Virtualized or not?

- Preferred operating system: Windows (server or not), or Linux (what flavor?)

- CPU & RAM requirements. What is overkill, what is too little?

- Disk space requirements for DST (not counting for OS & stuff. Basically, how much DST server and it's tools needs disk space.)

- Do I need GPU capability on server side?

- What kind of network upload speeds do I need?

 

All needs to run smoothly. Server lag due too many players is a big no-no, as we might be sending personal invitations for players to join this server, and it would be really bad if we needed to start kicking invited guests out as a remedy to server being too crowded.

Also stability is a big concern. I'm looking at 3 x 3 hour game sessions, where everything needs to go 100% smooth.

 

 

All answers are appreciated! Thanks in advance!

[rezecib]

@Jounas, I wouldn't touch tick rate at all. I've seen no evidence that it has any meaningful (positive) impact on gameplay, and, if anything, will degrade server performance because now it's trying to network stuff twice as often or more.

 

Virtualized should work, but physical would be better, because it needs to monopolize a single core as much as possible, which I believe (but I'm no expert in this) virtual cores obfuscate a bit. Edit: If you have a good desktop, you can definitely just host off of that. That's what I do.

 

Operating system... shouldn't matter. Linux distros sometimes have problems getting a few of the libraries it relies on, particularly libcurl, and some of them have unusual default filesystems that have been causing problems, but I think those have been getting resolved. As for which distros, someone else will have to answer that.

 

CPU - the fastest clock speed. Number of cores won't really matter at all, the game is bottlenecked by a single thread that runs the majority of the game simulation.

 

RAM - the game can only use 2GB, I believe. So 4GB should be enough, taking into account the OS.

 

Disk Space - the game files themselves are currently at about 500 MB. Depending on how much activity you have on your server, number of separate worlds, etc, the save data could maybe double that, I think, but most likely it'll sit in the 10-50 MB range.

 

GPU - no, the dedicated server does not render.

 

Upload - I believe it sits around 8 KB/player/s, or 64 Kb/player/s. Of course more is better, as there's definitely an upload spike when someone joins the game.

 

Hosting 6 players is easily accomplished, 16... maybe with a good setup. I wouldn't count on more than that, at the moment, anyway.

[Jounas]

@rezecib thanks for the reply!

 

I successifully installed a server on laptop for testing purposes and had people join in with no problem. It definitely seems that hosting a server is not eating too much of resources on the host machine. I could do 4 players easily.

 

I'll be meddling about with my server's settings, to see what kind of a mix of mods and world settings will give me what we'll need.

 

Anyone got any tips on what mods I should definitely install? Gameplay will most likely be wilderness with PvP sometimes on, sometimes off.

[rezecib]

@Jounas, Hmm, well, for wilderness I don't know many mods that would work well with it. Except perhaps throwable spears for PvP.

 

For non-wilderness cooperative play, Global Positions and Simple Protection are helpful server mods.

[Jounas]

@%1;, thanks for the mod tips. I'll definitely check throwable spears. Global Positions seems a good one, and I think we could use HUD Minimap also. Where's My Beefalo Mod might also make the gameplay a bit faster paced, as there would be less of a need to roam around looking for resources.

 

I don't think we'll need Simple Protection in this particular case. I believe we're going to settle with a password-closed server for 4-5 invited players, and if they want to crash and burn everything, it is in their power to do so. And if they do, it'll be barren Easter Island for the rest of the round.

 

I know this is getting a bit off from the original topic, but the next question I have is that is there any way to make the days go by a bit faster? The normal pace is 8 real life minutes to a one day of game time (30 seconds per segment). That makes it around 7,5 days of game time per 60 minutes of real time. What I'd like to have is bit faster day cycle, say, around 5 minutes real time per a day of game time. That way there would be 20+ days in the 100-120 minutes of play time, and a possibility to have a season change in that 100-minute session as well.

 

I'll be posting a new topic on the last bit, as it is a clearly separate issue from the original server specs.

[rezecib]

@Jounas, Well, Minimap HUD, Where's My Beefalo, Always On Status, etc, are all client-only mods, so people joining need to enable them themselves (but they can have them on wherever they go).

 

As for faster days... I think you could configure this mod to do that.

[Jounas]

@@%1; (I wonder if mentioning works this time...), I'm aware that some of the mods are client only. I'll be writing a memo for the players later today, with all the configs they need to change and mods they need to subscribe.

 

As for the Global Positions, I've been unable to get it to work AT ALL in Wilderness mode. What I want is the fires to show as map icons and indicators.

 

When I change game mode in settings.ini to something other than wilderness, everything works. With wilderness mode, I've been unable to see either map icons at all. I've tried almost everything: enabled and disabled override mode, enabled and disabled modoverrides.lua, changed settings in modoverrides.lua, hosted a non-dedicated server, removed and re-installed the client installation and dedicated server and all the mods on the server machine.

 

Last-ditch is to see if enabling player indicators has any effect on hte fire icons.

Could it be, that some update has changed something, and Global Positions mod no longer works in Wilderness mode?

As for faster days, I already got a recommendation for that same mod in the mods forums. I got the mod to work, but I think I'll still just go with a workaround method, and start the games at around server day 4. That way, it gives me 4 days to plant pre-built easter eggs in the map (I'm thinking of couple of chests with food and tools, hidden in the dark corners of the world), and I 100% won't hurt the game balance, If I don't fiddle with any timers.

[Jounas]

I got the Global Positions to show fire indicators in Wilderness mode at least somehow. It'll show previously lit fires when I save and leave the server and join back in. If I light any more fires, it won't show indicators.

None of the fires show on map, though.

 

I'll mess around with the mods settings to see if anything more comes up. I'll post lua-files shortly.