Satisfactory dedicated server: requirements, setup and when to rent

A Satisfactory dedicated server lets anyone in your group log in and build without waiting for the host to come online. It’s a separate download, Steam app 1690800, for Windows and 64-bit Linux. The official wiki asks for 8 GB of RAM, 16 GB for bigger saves or more than four players, and a CPU with fast single cores. That last part matters more than it looks.

Below: the Linux install from the official Satisfactory wiki, the settings worth changing, and when renting beats your own PC.

What a dedicated server gives you over hosting from the game

When you host from the game, the save runs on your PC. Log off and the factory is gone for everyone, so the group plays on your schedule. A dedicated server runs the save by itself, and anyone can join when they like.

It also removes the host’s edge. The in-game host plays with no network between them and the world, while everyone else goes through the host’s home connection. On a dedicated server, everyone joins over the network, you included.

Two caveats. The server can pause itself when nobody’s connected (the Auto Pause setting), so “always on” means always available, not producing while you sleep. And the default player cap is four; the wiki says the server is “tuned to be most performant” at that number.

Requirements, from the official wiki

• CPU: “A vaguely recent x86-64 compatible Intel (i5-3570 or better) or AMD (Ryzen 5 3600 or better) processor.” The wiki says the server “heavily favors high single-core performance” and that anything with a single-thread rating of 2000 or higher should work.
• RAM: 8 GB. “16GB RAM may be recommended for larger saves or to host more than 4 players.”
• Disk: 8 GB on Linux, 12.4 GB on Windows.
• OS: Windows 10 or 11, Windows Server 2016, 2019 or 2022, or Linux such as Debian or Ubuntu. No 32-bit, no ARM.
• Ports: 7777 UDP (game traffic and the Lightweight Query API), 7777 TCP (server traffic and the HTTPS API), 8888 TCP (reliable messaging).

Read the CPU line twice. Satisfactory wants fast cores more than many cores, so compare single-thread rating and turbo clock before core count.

Installing it on Linux, step by step

1. Make a user for the server. Don’t run it as root.
2. Install SteamCMD with Valve’s instructions.
3. Download the server. App 1690800 is the Satisfactory Dedicated Server, a Windows and Linux tool on SteamDB. Anonymous login, no Steam account needed.
4. Open the ports: 7777 UDP and TCP, plus 8888 TCP.
5. Start it with ./FactoryServer.sh.
6. Claim it. In the game, open the Server Manager from the main menu, add the server, name it and set the admin password.
7. Create a session or upload your save from the server’s Manage Saves tab.

# as your admin user
sudo useradd -m steam
sudo ufw allow 7777/udp && sudo ufw allow 7777/tcp && sudo ufw allow 8888/tcp
sudo -iu steam

# as steam
steamcmd +force_install_dir ~/SatisfactoryDedicatedServer +login anonymous +app_update 1690800 validate +quit
cd ~/SatisfactoryDedicatedServer
./FactoryServer.sh

To update, stop the server and run the same SteamCMD line. If your group plays the experimental branch, add -beta experimental after the app ID.

Then run it as a service. The wiki warns that a manually started server “will not automatically restart” after a crash, and its Running as a Service page covers systemd. Stop it with systemctl stop satisfactory or Ctrl+C, never by killing the window, so it finishes writing files.

Where things live on Linux:

• Saves: ~/.config/Epic/FactoryGame/Saved/SaveGames/server
• Server settings: ~/.config/Epic/FactoryGame/Saved/SaveGames/ServerSettings.7777.sav
• Game.ini: ~/SatisfactoryDedicatedServer/FactoryGame/Saved/Config/LinuxServer/Game.ini

Copy the saves folder off the server every night. Before you invite anyone, go through our Linux hardening checklist.

The settings worth changing

Most settings live in the Server Manager, not in a file:

• Auto Pause: pause when nobody’s connected. Leave it on unless you want the factory running overnight.
• Auto-Save on Player Disconnect: worth turning on.
• Autosave Interval: the server saves every 300 seconds by default and rotates three autosaves. mNumRotatingAutosaves in Engine.ini changes the count.
• Server Restart Interval: despite the name, the wiki says it isn’t an interval. It’s the hour of the day the server restarts.
• Network Quality: higher may speed up client load times, at the cost of server framerate.

The player cap lives in Game.ini. The wiki’s example raises it to eight:

[/Script/Engine.GameSession]
MaxPlayers=8

Edit ini files only with the server shut down. The configuration page warns that they’re “written to on graceful shutdown,” so live edits get overwritten. I’d move from four to six or eight and stop there until you’ve seen how the server copes.

Save size, CPU and restarts

The wiki ties memory to save size but doesn’t publish save sizes or a memory curve, so watch your own. Check free -h and the saves folder’s size weekly, and you’ll spot the factory outgrowing the box early. The wiki doesn’t prescribe a restart schedule either; the daily restart hour above is there if you want one.

CPU is the other limit, and it’s single-thread. Use the wiki’s i5-3570 as the yardstick for anything you rent, ours included. Intel’s specs:

• Core i5-3570 (the wiki’s example): 4 cores, 3.4 GHz base, 3.8 GHz turbo, 2012.
• Xeon E3-1230 v1 (our $126 build): 4 cores, 3.2 / 3.6 GHz, 2011.
• Xeon E3-1271 v3 (an option on the same order form): 4 cores, 3.6 / 4.0 GHz, 2014.
• Xeon D-1541 (our $159 Special): 8 cores, 2.1 / 2.7 GHz, 2015.

On paper, the E3-1230 v1 is a year older and 200 MHz slower than the wiki’s example, while the E3-1271 v3 is faster on both clocks and a newer generation. The D-1541 trades clock for cores the wiki doesn’t ask for. Check each chip’s single-thread rating against 2000 before you rent anything.

When renting beats your PC

It comes down to three things.

Upload. A home server pushes every player’s updates out through your upload, usually the thin side of the line. The FCC’s March 2024 broadband benchmark is 100 Mbps down and 20 up, and your whole household shares that 20. Nobody official publishes a per-player figure for Satisfactory, so run vnstat -l during a session and look.

NAT. You need 7777 and 8888 forwarded straight through, same numbers inside and out. Behind carrier-grade NAT, there’s nothing to forward. Test from outside, as the wiki advises: connect to the public IP from a machine that isn’t on your LAN.

Schedule. A save on your gaming PC is only playable while that PC is on. The point of a dedicated server is that the night-shift player in your group doesn’t need you.

Our dedicated game server builds are whole machines, month to month with $0 setup. Satisfactory runs on Linux, so skip the $50 a month Windows Server line.

• $126 a month, Chicago or Los Angeles: Xeon E3-1230 v1 (4 cores, 8 threads), 16 GB of RAM, 1 TB HDD, 30 TB of transfer.
• $159 a month, Ashburn, Chicago or Los Angeles: Xeon D-1541 Special (8 cores, 16 threads), 64 GB of RAM, 1 TB SSD, 1 Gbps unmetered port.

For Satisfactory, I’d start from the E3 build and swap in the E3-1271 v3, $20 a month more than the v1 on the order form. The reason is single-thread speed: it’s the highest-clocked CPU on that form and beats the wiki’s i5-3570 on both clocks. Stock on individual CPUs varies, so the order form or a quote confirms it’s available. The build’s 16 GB already matches the wiki’s figure for larger saves. Take the $159 Special when the box will also run other game servers, since that’s where its cores and 64 GB earn their keep. Either build includes 4 Gbps of DDoS protection, and the order form has bigger tiers: 6 Gbps for $155, 8 for $330 and 10 for $525 a month.

FAQ

Pick a build on our game servers page, or send your player count and save size through the custom quote form. We’ll reply within one business day with a configuration and price.