Necesse Dedicated Server: Complete Guide (Setup, server.cfg, Ports, Commands)

A Necesse dedicated server keeps your world online when the host logs off, so settlers keep working and friends join whenever they want. You can create one for free on our Necesse server page or run the official server on your own PC. This guide covers both, plus server.cfg, ports and commands.

• Fastest way: create a free Necesse server on 1up, share the address and port from the panel. No port forwarding.
• Free plan: 1 server, up to 4 players, 2 GB RAM, 5 GB disk.
• Self-hosting: install "Necesse Dedicated Server" from Steam (or SteamCMD app 1169370), forward UDP 14159, keep the PC on.
• Version: the current build is 1.3.3 (build 24926468). Players must run the same version as the server.
• Config: settings live in cfg/server.cfg; world rules live in worldSettings.cfg inside the world save.

1. Dedicated server or in-game hosting?

Necesse lets you host a world from inside the game. The official wiki explains the trade-off: a world hosted in-game only exists while its owner is online and in that world. If the owner is not playing, nobody else can join.

A dedicated server is a separate program that runs the world on its own. The wiki's verdict is short: its one advantage is that the world is always online and reachable. For a group that plays at different hours, or a settlement you want to keep growing, that advantage is the whole point.

Quick comparison:

• In-game hosting: free and built in, but the world is closed whenever the owner is offline.
• Your own dedicated server: free software and full control, but your PC stays on, you open a UDP port and you install every update.
• A hosted server: the world lives in a data centre, you manage it from a web panel and nobody's PC has to stay on.

2. Free Necesse server in 60 seconds

This is the route we built for groups that want to play tonight without touching a router.

1. Create an account on the Free plan. It asks for no card.
2. Choose Necesse in the new server wizard.
3. Pick a region, London or Paris. The wizard measures your ping and suggests the nearest one.
4. Keep the Vanilla template. It always runs the newest public build: our image checks Steam at every start and installs a new build when there is one.
5. Create the server and wait for it to come online. The panel shows the address and the port your friends need. The port is not always 14159, so copy both from the panel.
6. In Necesse, open Multiplayer, click Add Server, give it a name, type the address and the port, click Add and then join. That is the same path the wiki describes for any dedicated server.

The Free plan gives you 2 GB of RAM, which is the minimum our Necesse catalog entry asks for; we recommend 4 GB for bigger worlds. The server's Java memory is set for you from the plan, so you never edit JVM flags.

Four settings sit in the panel's settings tab, and each one maps to an official launch parameter:

• MOTD → -motd. The message players see. If you leave it empty we use your server name.
• Server password → -password. At least 4 characters in our panel; empty means anyone with the address can join.
• Max players → -slots. The game accepts 1 to 250, our default is 10, and your plan caps it (4 on Free).
• Pause when empty → -pausewhenempty. On by default in our panel, so the world stops while nobody is connected. Turn it off if you want crops and settlers to keep going.

Every change needs a restart, and the panel says so next to each field.

3. Host a Necesse dedicated server on your own PC

If you prefer to self-host, the dedicated server is free and needs no game key.

Get the files. There are three official ways, all listed on the wiki:

• In your Steam library, filter by Tools, find Necesse Dedicated Server and install it.
• With SteamCMD: login anonymous, then app_update 1169370 validate.
• As a zip from necessegame.com/server, which lists Windows, macOS and Linux builds. The current one is v1.3.3 build 24926468, and older versions stay available there.

Windows. Run StartServer.bat. The server asks for a world name, whether you want custom options, the port (14159), the number of slots (1 to 250), a password, a spawn island, a seed and whether to spawn the guide house. Leave the window open while people play. To stop, type quit.

Linux. The wiki's Linux guide installs the server with SteamCMD under its own necesse user and starts it with StartServer-nogui.sh. Pass -world <name> and it skips the questions:

./StartServer-nogui.sh -world MyWorld

The same page has a ready-made systemd unit if you want the server to start with the machine. If the world name does not exist yet, the server creates it; that is what happened in our own test run of 1.3.3.

Stop it properly. The wiki warns that the dedicated server does not save on SIGTERM, which is what docker stop and many service managers send. Type stop (or exit, or quit) in the console so it saves first. On 1up our stop button sends save and stop for you.

4. server.cfg: every setting explained

The first time the server starts, it writes server.cfg in a cfg folder. By default that folder is in %APPDATA%\Necesse\cfg on Windows and ~/.config/Necesse/cfg on Linux, according to the wiki. The launch option -localdir keeps it next to the server files, and -datadir <path> moves all data (config, saves, logs) to a folder you choose.

The file is not JSON. It is a block that starts with SERVER = { and holds one key = value, per line. This is what Necesse 1.3.3 wrote in our test, with the defaults:

• port = 14159. Range 0 to 65535. The UDP port players connect to.
• slots = 10. Range 1 to 250. Maximum players at once.
• password = empty. Leave blank for no password.
• maxClientLatencySeconds = 30. How long a client can stop answering before it is dropped.
• pauseWhenEmpty = true. Pauses the world while nobody is online.
• strictServerAuthority = false. Makes the server much stricter about what clients can do. The file's own comment says to enable it only if absolutely necessary.
• logging = true. Writes a log file for each server start.
• language = en. Only used for occasional server messages.
• unloadLevelsCooldown = 30. Seconds a level stays loaded after the last player leaves it.
• droppedItemsLifeMinutes = 0. Minutes dropped items stay on the ground; 0 or less keeps them forever.
• unloadSettlements = false. Whether settlements are unloaded or kept running.
• maxSettlementsPerPlayer = -1. -1 means no limit.
• maxSettlersPerSettlement = -1. -1 means no limit.
• zipSaves = true. Saves the world as a .zip.
• MOTD = empty. Message of the day.

Three rules save you from most config surprises:

• Stop the server before editing. The wiki says to always stop it first, then edit the file with any text editor.
• Launch parameters win. The wiki notes that parameters not given on the command line are loaded from the settings file. In our test we started with -port 24159: the server listened on 24159 while server.cfg still said 14159.
• World rules are not in server.cfg. Difficulty, death penalty, raids and similar live in worldSettings.cfg inside the world's .zip. In 1.3.3 a new world starts on difficulty = CLASSIC, deathPenalty = DROP_MATS and raidFrequency = OCCASIONALLY. Change them with console commands (section 6) instead of unzipping the save.

On a 1up server the files sit under necesse/ in Files. The panel passes port, slots, password, MOTD and pause-when-empty as launch parameters; change slots, password, MOTD and pausing in the Settings tab. Keys the panel does not manage, such as unloadSettlements or droppedItemsLifeMinutes, stay in necesse/cfg/server.cfg. The panel's editor does not open .cfg files, so stop the server, download server.cfg, edit it on your PC and upload it back to necesse/cfg, which replaces the old file. The server keeps your edits at the next start. Our upcoming server settings and admin commands post will go deeper into each one.

5. Ports: UDP 14159

Necesse uses one port: 14159, UDP, as the wiki states. There is no separate query or RCON port. Our test server also logged a LAN socket on port 55169; it is for your local network and the wiki only asks you to forward 14159.

If you self-host:

1. Log in to your router and forward UDP 14159 to the PC running the server. TCP is not enough.
2. On Windows, add an inbound firewall rule for UDP 14159. The wiki walks through it: Windows Firewall → Advanced settings → Inbound Rules → New Rule → Port → UDP.
3. Give friends your public IPv4 address. Addresses in the 192.168.x.x range are private and only work inside your house.
4. Test with a port checker if you like, but the wiki warns that checkers sometimes report false negatives for UDP. If the server is listening, try a real join before you give up.

If you change the port with -port or in server.cfg, forward that one instead, and tell players to type it in the Port Number field when they add the server.

On 1up there is nothing to forward. Your server gets its own public port, which the panel shows next to the address. If friends cannot connect at all, our «can't connect to friend» guide goes through invites, ports and version mismatches one by one.

6. Commands every admin needs

Commands work from the server console and, for players with the right permission level, from the in-game chat with a leading /. In the console you can type them without the slash. The full list is on the wiki; these are the ones you will use most, checked with help <command> on 1.3.3.

Permission levels. permissions list prints User, Creative Settings, Moderator, Admin, Owner, Server. Everyone who joins starts as User. Promote yourself from the console:

• permissions set <name> owner: makes that player an owner.
• permissions get <name>: shows someone's level.
• -owner <name> as a launch option gives owner rights to anyone joining with that name.

Moderation:

• players: who is online, for example Players online: 0/10.
• kick <player> [reason]: Moderator level.
• ban <name>, unban <name>, bans: Admin level.
• say <message>: talk in the chat as Server. Moderator level.
• save: write the world now. Moderator level.

World and server:

• difficulty <list/difficulty>: casual, adventure, classic, hard or brutal.
• deathpenalty <list/penalty>: none, dropmats, dropmaininventory, dropfull_inventory or hardcore.
• raids <list/frequency>: often, occasionally, rarely or never.
• settings list: shows the other world settings you can change, such as DisableMobSpawns, ForcedPvP, PlayerHunger and CanSettlersDie.
• motd <clear/get/message> and password [<password>]: change them on the fly.
• pausewhenempty <0/1>: switch pausing on or off.
• stop: save and stop the server.

A warning about cheats. Commands marked as cheats on the wiki, such as give, time or tp, give a warning before they run, and using them disables achievements on that world. allowcheats enables cheats for good; the wiki marks it as not reversible.

On 1up, say, kick, ban, players and save are one-click buttons in the console, and the players tab can kick, ban and unban without typing a name. Our upcoming server settings and admin commands post will cover the full command list with examples.

7. Move an existing world to your server

Worlds are .zip files in the saves folder of the data directory (%APPDATA%\Necesse\saves on Windows, ~/.config/Necesse/saves on Linux, per the wiki). The dedicated server loads the world whose name you pass with -world.

To move a world to 1up: stop the server, open Files, and in necesse/saves/worlds rename the current 1up.zip (to 1up-old.zip, for example) to keep it as a copy. Upload your world's .zip there, rename it to 1up.zip, and start the server again. The console then says Loading existing world. Keep the original on your PC, because the Free plan has no backup slots.

8. Updates and version matching

Fair Games ships regular patches; Steam's news feed shows v1.3.3 on 25 August 2026. The wiki is clear that the server must match the client's game version, which is the most common reason a friend suddenly cannot join after an update.

• Self-hosted: run the SteamCMD update again (app_update 1169370 validate) after every game patch, or schedule it.
• On 1up: restart the server. The image checks Steam at start and installs the new build if there is one.

9. When the Free plan is not enough

The Free plan covers a small group on one world. Signs you have outgrown it, with prices from our pricing page:

• More than 4 players: Casual (€3/month) allows 8, Starter (€7/month) 10 and Pro (€12/month) 20.
• Backups: Free has none. Casual includes 1, Starter 3 and Pro 5.
• A large world with many settlements: we recommend 4 GB for Necesse. Starter has 3 GB and Pro has 6 GB.

Tested on Necesse 1.3.3 (1up image sha256:3d717b31), 2026-10-04.

Change log

• 2026-10-04: first version.