How to make a Satisfactory server

Your Satisfactory server is installed and waiting for you. Here's how to start it, add it in the game, bring your friends in and keep your factory saved.

What you get after ordering

Your server is installed and stopped, ready for its first start. Its admin password is made for you at setup, and it's shown in the left rail of your dashboard as Admin password. You'll need it in the game in a moment.

Start the server

Press Start, then open the Console. Satisfactory's own log is long and technical, so the console hides it and shows a short list of plain-English lines instead:

The first time it starts, Play Your Way sets your server up with your server's name and the admin password, so it's ready to manage from the game.

Add your server in the game

1. Launch Satisfactory and choose Server Manager from the main menu.
2. Choose Add Server, and enter your server's address: the IP and port shown at the top of your dashboard. Keep the port as it's shown.
3. When the game asks, enter your Admin password from the left rail.
4. Choose Create Game to start a new world (pick your starting area), or upload a save from your own game to keep playing it.

Your friends add the server the same way, by its address. They don't need the admin password to play: anyone who has it can change the server's settings and load other worlds, so keep it to yourself.

Player limit

Satisfactory lets in 4 players by default, which is what the game is tuned for. To allow more, change Max Players in the Startup tab, then restart the server. More players work, but each one adds load, so a bigger group is happiest on a bigger plan. The Players tab shows who's on right now.

Saves

The game saves your world by itself every 5 minutes, and whenever a player leaves. When nobody is on, the server pauses the world, so nothing is lost while it's empty.

When you press Stop or Restart in your dashboard, or a scheduled restart runs, Play Your Way saves your world first, so a restart with friends on never throws away the last few minutes. The next start loads that save.

Rotating Autosaves in the Startup tab sets how many autosaves the server keeps before it reuses the oldest. Your saves are in the Files tab, under .config/Epic/FactoryGame/Saved/SaveGames/server, and Backups keeps copies of your worlds, server settings and mods that you can restore in one click. The game itself isn't in a backup: it comes from Steam, so a restore puts your world back on the game's current version.

Factory Stats, Factory Planner and Interactive Map

Three tabs, together under Factory in your dashboard's menu, read your latest save. Pick the world save once, at the top of any of them, and all three show it.

Factory Stats has three sections:

• Overview: the live game, your power, what needs attention, your top products, power by generator, and how much of the world you've collected.
• Production: every item your factory makes and uses each minute, as cards (Resource stats) or as one flow from raw resources to power (Factory flow). Click an item to see where it comes from and where it goes.
• Production lines: every group of machines on one recipe, slowest first, with the reason. The reasons come from the machines themselves: a full output means a line is backed up, an empty input means it's waiting.

Factory Planner: pick what you want to make and how many a minute, and it lays out every step down to the raw resources, with machines, clock speeds, power and Power Shards. Swap recipes, count what your factory already makes, and save plans for everyone on your server. Its settings start from what your world has unlocked. Plan this on any item or line in Factory Stats opens it here.

Interactive Map: your bases as you built them, every machine at its real spot, the resource nodes, and what's still out there to collect. Hover anything for its details. The Layers button beside the zoom buttons chooses what the map shows. Show on map anywhere in Factory Stats or the planner opens it here.

Experimental branch

To run the game's Experimental branch, set Game Branch to experimental in the Startup tab and restart. Everyone who joins needs the Experimental branch too. Make a backup first: a world saved on Experimental may not load on the normal game.

If something isn't working

• Friends can see the server but can't join: make sure they added it with the exact address and port from your dashboard, and that their game is on the same branch and version as the server.
• The game asks you to claim the server: the server's settings were reset, for example by a reinstall. Start the server and wait a minute: Play Your Way sets it up again by itself. If it still asks, contact us.
• The game says the server is claimed by someone else: someone set it up in the game before Play Your Way could. Contact us and we'll reset it for you.