How to install, host and configure an Avorion server

On your own Avorion dedicated server, you can define your personal play style for exciting space ad­ven­tures in co-op or PvP mode. All you need is suf­fi­cient computing power, access to the firewall and the command line tool SteamCMD.

What are the re­quire­ments for an Avorion server?

You can run your own Avorion server on either a Windows or a Linux operating system since the dedicated server software is com­pat­ible with both systems. Re­gard­less of your choice, hosting on external hardware is re­com­men­ded for two reasons. Running a server requires ad­di­tion­al computing power and bandwidth. If you also want to play the game on the same device, your computer may quickly reach its limits—unlike with external hosting. Renting hardware, on the other hand, ensures that the dedicated server remains online in­de­pend­ently of your device.

To host an Avorion dedicated server for stable mul­ti­play­er sessions, your setup should fulfill the following minimum re­quire­ments:

• CPU/processor: Quad core CPU with min. 2.0 GHz
• RAM/working memory: min. 4-6 GB
• Hard disk storage: 5 GB

In addition to the computing power needed for the Avorion software, the re­quire­ments of the re­spect­ive operating system must also be con­sidered. For a Windows Server 2022, for example, an ad­di­tion­al 1.4 GHz CPU, 2 GB RAM (for graphical user interface) and 32 GB storage space must be planned for.

IONOS offers these options for your own Avorion server

You can find suitable hardware for an Avorion dedicated server from a hosting provider that offers server solutions in its portfolio, such as IONOS. The vServer (also VPS) is a server variant in which the un­der­ly­ing hardware is com­pletely vir­tu­al­ised. The various packages are available at a fixed monthly price. As an en­ter­prise al­tern­at­ive, dedicated servers are an option based on dedicated hardware. These high-per­form­ance servers with optional vir­tu­al­isa­tion are suitable for even the most demanding ap­plic­a­tion scenarios. With this model, the per­form­ance used is billed by the minute.

For a simpler overview of the server packages on offer and their re­spect­ive suit­ab­il­ity for hosting your own Avorion server, we’ve sum­mar­ised three possible use cases in the following table and assigned the most suitable IONOS packages to them.

Savings tip for server newbies

If you want to start off with a small co-op adventure in the world of Avorion, a low-cost package will suffice. As soon as you realise that you need more computing capacity, simply upgrade to a higher per­form­ance package.

The cheapest package with suitable computing power: Windows VPS M.

How to create an Avorion server (Windows server)

The following step-by-step guide will show you exactly how to install and configure the Avorion dedicated server software on the re­spect­ive hardware using SteamCMD. The steps provided are based on the per­spect­ive of IONOS customers, with Windows Server 2022 as the operating system.

Step 1: Connect to the server remotely

To install and set up the Avorion ap­plic­a­tion on the rented server hardware, the first step is to connect to the system via remote access. IONOS customers can set up this remote con­nec­tion via their customer account. You’ll need to carry out the following steps:

1. Log in with your personal login details.
2. Go to the Server & Cloud section.
3. Click on the rented server in the list.
4. Press Actions and Open remote console in suc­ces­sion.

The remote console will auto­mat­ic­ally open in a new browser tab. You can find the login cre­den­tials for accessing the Windows server in the cor­res­pond­ing section of your customer account.

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Step 2: Install SteamCMD

Once you have es­tab­lished a con­nec­tion, the second step is to install the SteamCMD software. This command line client enables fast and secure access to the public Steam servers and is therefore the best solution for obtaining the dedicated server ap­plic­a­tion for Avorion. Click on the following SteamCMD download link to download the installer for Windows. Then unzip the package in a directory of your choice and double-click the unzipped file to install SteamCMD.

Step 3: Install the Steam app ‘Avorion dedicated server’

You can now use SteamCMD for Steam access at any time by executing the file steamcmd.exe. Once the service is ready for use, you’ll be presented with the command line Steam> in the command prompt window.

First, specify an in­stall­a­tion directory for the Avorion server. With the following command, for example, you can ensure that SteamCMD downloads the server files to the directory C:\avorion-dedicated-server and installs them there:

force_install_dir C:\avorion-dedicated-server

In the next step, you connect an­onym­ously to the public Steam servers:

login anonymous

After suc­cess­fully logging in, you can download the server software. To do this, combine the command app_update with the Steam app ID (565060) of the required ap­plic­a­tion ‘Avorion Dedicated Server’:

app_update 565060

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To log out of the Steam servers — and close the client — finally execute the quit command.

Step 4: Customise the start script

To start the server instance, there is a simple start script with the name server.bat in the unpacked directory. If you open this file with any editor, you can freely customise the start para­met­ers. By default, you will only find the two para­met­ers --server-name for the name of the Avorion server and --admin for the Steam ID of the ad­min­is­trat­or of the server.

You can append as many para­met­ers as you like and then save the file to apply the changes. You’ll find the most important available options in the following table:

Step 5: Configure the Avorion server

Apart from the simple para­met­ers for the server start, you have even more versatile options for cus­tom­ising the game world and the gameplay in Avorion in­di­vidu­ally. However, the server.ini file required for this is only generated after the first execution of the Avorion dedicated server. To do this, double-click the server.bat script (adapted or unchanged) and close the prompt window after a few seconds.

You’ll then find the con­fig­ur­a­tion file under the following path: C:\users\username\AppData\Roaming\Avorion\galaxies\.

Open the file with the editor of your choice. You can then adjust the values shown for the game world to suit your re­quire­ments. Detailed ex­plan­a­tions of the in­di­vidu­al setting options can be found in the Avorion Wiki on fandom.com.

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Step 6: Enable server ports

To make your server publicly ac­cess­ible, the next step is to enable the TCP/UDP ports 27000, 27003, 27020 and 27021. To do this, you must adjust the Firewall settings ac­cord­ingly, which can also be done in the customer account or cloud panel for an IONOS server:

1. Log in to your account via the login page.
2. Go to the Server & Cloud section.
3. Select the hardware on which you have pre­vi­ously set up the Avorion server.
4. Press Network and Firewall policies in the menu on the left in suc­ces­sion.
5. Add rules for the TCP and UDP ports 27000, 27003, 27020 and 27021 under Incoming.

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Step 7: Start the Avorion server

You can now start your Avorion dedicated server at any time using the server.bat macro with the desired para­met­ers. To do this, double-click the batch file as described in step 5. You can follow the ini­tial­isa­tion of the server instance live in the prompt window that opens. If the start was suc­cess­ful, you’ll see the line Server startup complete.

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Step 8: Connect to your own server

Once the server instance is running, you and your fellow players can join the created Avorion server as follows:

1. Start Avorion.
2. Press Mul­ti­play­er.
3. Select the item Browse Servers and search for your server in the list.
4. Al­tern­at­ively, press Join via IP and enter the IP address of the rented server and any server name. Click Add server.
5. Connect to the Avorion server by clicking Join.

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After a short loading time, you will find yourself in space — and the joint search for ship­wrecks, asteroid fields and giant asteroids as well as fleet con­struc­tion can finally begin!

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Your server is clearly iden­ti­fi­able and ac­cess­ible via the IP address. However, you can also link the Avorion server with your own domain and give it an in­di­vidu­al name that is easier to remember and type in. Use the domain check from IONOS and find your dream address with suitable endings such as .space or .games.