Open your browser of choice, and go to your router gateway (usually 192.168.1.1[192.168.1.1] or 10.0.0.138[10.0.0.138]).

You’re going to want to forward the following ports to BOTH TCP & UDP:

• 7777 (Game port)
  
• 27015 (Query port)

Port forwarding can be different per ISP (Internet Service Provider), so if you are unsure how to do this you’ll want to look up a tutorial for your particular ISP / modem / router.

If StartServer.bat isn't showing up, download it here and place it in the server install folder.[drive.google.com]

You can either get the dedicated server from the Steam client, or by installing App ID 884110 from SteamCMD. Keep in mind that even if you are using SteamCMD, you will need the Steam client installed for the Dedicated Server to start up.

Launching the tool through Steam doesn’t work! If you installed using the Steam client, right click the app and go to Manage > Browse Local Files.

All paths in this document will be relative to this location.


Double-click StartServer.bat (or just StartServer if you have file extensions off).

You will need to run the Dedicated Server at least once for the config files to generate, you can close it immediately.

You can view your server in the server browser in Steam by going to View > Servers and adding SCP: 5K to the search filter.


If your server does not show, make sure your ports are forwarded properly and that your firewall is not blocking the server.

Unfortunately, server names are not working properly right now so we recommend using the ping or your server’s unique ID to identify it. If your server is hosted locally you can also find it in the LAN tab.

Admins can be added in-game by using the /admin command, however until there is at least one admin to run the command, admins and owners need to be added through the configs manually, using their Steam ID[www.steamidfinder.com] (steamID64).

The configs for Admin and Owner IDs can be found in WindowsServer\Pandemic\Saved\Config

You will have to add your Steam ID[www.steamidfinder.com] (steamID64) to these files in order to be able to run commands in game. Likewise, if you have a whitelist enabled on your server, you will have to add your Steam ID[www.steamidfinder.com] (steamID64) to the whitelist in order to be able to join the game, after which you can add new players using commands.

There are several commands available in-game to aid with the moderation, management, and flow of a server. You can access a full list of each command, alias and a brief description using /help, but here is some you may find useful:

• /admin [Player Name or ID] - Adds a player to the admin list
  
• /removeadmin [Player Name or ID] - Removes a player from the admin list
  
• /list - Lists all players in the game, their Steam IDs and their admin status. This can be useful to find steam IDs of players who obfuscate their name in order to evade bans
  
• /ban [Player Name or ID] [Days] [Reason] - Temporarily bans a player from the server. If days input is not specified or is less than one, the ban is indefinite.
  
• /unban [Player ID] - Unbans a player from the server
  
• /kick [Player Name or ID] - Kicks a player from the server
  
• /kill [Player Name] - Kills a player, regardless of whether they are using god mode or not
  
• /god - toggles god mode
  
• /respawn [Player Name] - Forces a player to respawn as soon as possible. This is helpful if a player becomes stuck or cannot spawn

Configs can be used to modify the behavior of your server and customize your experience. Currently, some moderation options are only available on official servers, such as VAC and game bans. This is where you can specify a password, whether to use a whitelist, and so on.

Configs can be found in WindowsServer\Pandemic\Saved\ServerConfig.ini

If you are running multiple servers off of one install and want to use different configs per server, you can use -ConfigFileName=”Something.ini” in the individual StartServer.bat files to specify a config file for each one.

Certain aspects of the gameplay can be changed per server in the config file. This allows you to change the feel of the game and tweak it to your liking. Please note that enabling the gameplay config (by setting bOverrideDefaults to true) will disable stats and achievements for your server.

The gameplay config must have no line breaks.

You're going to want to set up maps to play on your server. There is a couple of ways to do this:

If you would like players to be able to vote for the maps they want to play, you can add a map rotation to the arguments of the executable (typically through the batch file you use to launch the server).
for example:
will add the Area 12 collection (the main campaign), the outpost axiom map, and the wave survival map to the map rotation. Arguments in the map rotation are comma separated, and can be individual maps or collections.

In order to have the map vote appear when players first join the server, you will have to define the standby map as the server's startup map. this is done by entering as the map in the batch file.

The server will automatically enter standby by default if there is no players in the lobby for more than 15 seconds. This saves resources on the machine and ensures that newly joining players have the best experience.

If you want to only have a single map, and always restart into the same map, then you can omit the map rotation argument, and simply put the name of your desired map as the first argument to your server executable (in the same place you would otherwise put M_ServerDefault)

your final launch command might look like this (some arguments such as max players and ports have been omitted):
or, if you only want to include the canals PVP map:

some of the map names available include:

• Area12_PersistentLevel - Area 12 Part 1
  
• Area12_Part2 - Area 12 Part 2
  
• Area12_Part3 - Area 12 Part 3
  
• M_HuntSweden - Outpost Axiom Hunt
  
• M_HuntSweden?Game=PVP - Outpost Axiom PVP
  
• M_Antarctica - Ghosts of the South Gate
  
• M_WaveSurvival - Wave Survival
  
• M_Sewer_CanalPVP - Canals PVP
  
• M_TestingMap - Weapons Testing

Players can report each other using the in-game report menu.

These reports are sent directly to you and are stored on the server, and can be found in WindowsServer\Pandemic\Saved\Reports. Report messages contain the Steam ID[www.steamidfinder.com] (steamID64) and name of the subject, the Steam ID[www.steamidfinder.com] (steamID64) and name of the reporter, The date and time of the report, the reason for the report and any additional info. We advise that player reports should be treated as hearsay.

In the future, player reports may also include a chat log of the accused party.

Community messages are a way of sending automated messages to the server when a player joins, at a specific time, or at a specific interval. This can be useful for notifying players when a server is about to automatically restart, to welcome new players with your server’s rules.
Messages can be found in WindowsServer\Pandemic\Saved\Messages.ini

The general format for a message is : ”[Message]”/”[Message]”,[Message Type],[Time]

An individual message config takes up one line, with 3 arguments separated by commas, with one or more /’s used to play a random message. Quotation marks can be used around text in order to have commas or forward slashes in it.

Message type is used to determine the context that the message should play, and can be either 0, 1 or 2.

0 is used for relative messages, that play at a set interval
1 is used for absolute messages, that play at a given local time
2 is used for join messages, that at a specific time after a user joins
The time is set in HH:MM:SS format.

You can also use some info from the context that the message is running in, for example {ServerName} will be replaced with the server’s name, and {PlayerName} will be replaced with the player’s name when used as a join message.

Here is some example messages:
It is currently 12PM,1,12:00:00

"This message will play every 20 minutes, the server name is {ServerName}"/This message plays every 20 minutes,0,00:20:00

Welcome {PlayerName} to {ServerName}!,2,00:00:05

• Make sure the ports 7777 and 27015 are port forwarded
  
• you cannot launch it through Steam, launch it through the batch file
  
• The Steam client must be installed, even if you used SteamCMD to install the dedicated server
  
• Your computer might need firewall exceptions on the aforementioned ports, or to be added to the DMZ on your router
  
• If the server fails to initialize, try adding a file called steam_appid.txt in the WindowsServer/Pandemic/Binaries/Win64 folder, containing only the following text: 872670 (if it does not already exist)