How do DST dedicated server works network wise?

[KZtyler]

Just curious, i didnt had to port forward (wich is strange given the fact that is a server running on certain port, so i tought i had to in order to get it online) so im wondering, how does the game know wich servers are available?

Sorry about my bad english, im argentinian.

[Daniel86268]

DST servers connect to the Central Klei server listing servers from where the connections are handled, the servers are listed and the entire traffic is routed over. This has the advantage that you don't have to worry about port forwarding, and your entire IP and stuff is hidden. The drawback is that if the Klei servers are down you can't connect or play on any DST server for the time being, unless you connect directly to the server. You only need port forwarding when the client directly connects to the server like in other games. That said, I never tried directly connecting to a DST server over the internet using "c_connect(<IP>, <port>, <Password>)". This one might not work without portforwarding, since it doesn't route the traffic over the Klei nodes, and instead does a direct connection. This might be interesting to try, both for science and potentially less lag.