"Easy" way to host two dedicated servers (overworld + caves) with Windows using Steam tool for dedicated server

[keivi]

I'm not sure if this is necessary info but I wanted to share my experience when hosting two dedicated servers using the Steam tool in Windows. By default, you cannot start a second instance of the same program using Steam (in this case the dedicated server). The reason why you would want to do this is because you can use different steam launch scripts for both servers.

 

I'm not going to go over what Klei and others have already told about setting the server. Just make sure you have

 

different ports for both servers

the slave server has the correct master server IP (separate from own IP)

you have opened the ports in your router

you have allowed the ports in your firewall

 

Once you have set the Steam tool ("Don't Starve Together Dedicated Server" in your Library -> Tools) to beta option and it has finished downloading and modifying the files correctly, you need to go the "...Steam/SteamApps/common" folder and make a new folder (you can name it for example "DSTDS").

 

Now you need to copy all content from the actual Steam tool folder (Don't Starve Together Dedicated Server) and paste it into the new DSTDS folder (by this point you should remove the "save" folder if present).

 

Now you need to go to steam and add new instance of the server from "Games -> Add non-steam game to library". From there you find the "DSTDS/bin" folder and add the "dontstarve_dedicated_server_nullrenderer.exe" . Now you will have the new executable in your Steam games library.

 

Now that you have added the second server, you can go to properties and add the steam launch script for caves according to instructions found on the forum. Also, note that you now have the .lua and settings.ini files duplicated from the overworld server into the new DSTDS folder (which is now the cave server) so make sure you make the necessary changes to them.

 

Also, the new server instance will not update automatically so when a new update comes, you need to again copy & paste the updated files from the "Don't Starve Together Dedicated Server" folder to "DSTDS" folder.

 

I hope I explained this well enough!

[keivi]

A few things I noticed.

 

1) I'm not even sure you have to make the DSTDS folder to add the second dedicated server to the steam list. Just adding the same executable might work, but I'm not sure about this (basically launching the same executable with different launch scripts).

 

2) The settings.ini and .lua files is not in the dedicated server folders but in the Klei folder in Documents. This is an error and an irrelevant part of the post. Sorry.

[Liane]

Such an awesome post and no replies ??  What the heck

[Navy2k]

Just made 2 links on my desktop and used -conf_dir 

so 100% less copy and same effect

On the other hand i don't use the steam UI that much