Setup Guide

Introduction

Pilots! This guide explains how to run a standalone local Star Conflict server, connect the game client to it, and perform basic configuration of the server components.
A local server allows you to run Star Conflict without connecting to the official game servers and to manage the server side of the game yourself. Depending on your configuration, you can run the server on the same computer as the client, or allow other computers to connect to the server.
If you just want to start a local game, we recommend using the “Quick Start” section. The other sections are intended for more detailed server configuration and working with its data.

Quick Start

The easiest way to start a local server is to launch the game through Steam.

1. Launch Star Conflict through Steam.
2. The game will automatically launch MongoDB and the server applications.
3. On the login screen, select “localhost.” This option is selected by default.
4. Enter your username and password, then click “Login.”
5. If an account with that username does not yet exist in the local database, it will be created automatically

After that, you can play on the local server.

Important: If you are starting the server for the first time or have changed its configuration, it may take some time to start up. Wait until the server applications have fully loaded before connecting a client.

Before You Start

MongoDB

MongoDB is used to store data on the local server. When launched normally through Steam, the database starts automatically.

Redis

Redis is required only for the leaderboards to function. If you don't need leaderboards, you don't need to install Redis.

Connect other computers

• By default, the server is configured for 127.0.0.1:3850. This allows you to connect to it from the same computer.
• If you plan to connect other computers, you will need to change the server address in the cloud.xml configuration file.

Changing the server's address does not provide complete protection against unwanted connections. If the server is accessible from a local network or the Internet, set up additional access restrictions and network security measures on your own.

Server architecture

A server (or a node) is a bundle of server applications and databases.

Server Applications and Databases:

• Hub — launches and stops the other server applications and routes messages between them.
• Shard — authorization, purchases, mail, ship equipment, and other.
• LoadBalancer — balance between separate nodes.
• MatchMaker — players/teams matchmaking, creates game sessions, adds players to the created games.
• DedicatedServer — game rooms server. Launches DedicatedServer when launching a battle.
• GameRewardDispencer — issues rewards after battles/sessions.
• Authenticator — user authorization/online condition service.
• ChatServer — used for communication between players.
• ConfigServer — updates configuration of separate services.
• Universe — responsible for the global condition of the “universe”/zone maps and clan conflicts.
• QuestServer — controls player quests: condition, progress, completion, synchronization with zones/scripts and rewards.
• ZoneCoordinator — coordinates ZoneInstance: tracks active zones, directs players to the zones.
• ZoneInstance — same as DedicatedServer, but for the open world.
• LobbyServer — manages the lobby before the game starts: rooms, player lineups, readiness, and match start settings.
• AchievementServer — stores and updates players’ achievement progress and issues rewards for achievements.
• LeaderboardServer — service for leaderboards.
• ClanServer — clan logic service: clan data, membership, clan-related requests, and associated operations.
• Tournament — tournament management service: launches tournaments according to the schedule, gathers registered players into teams, creates tournament matches, tracks victories by round, and sends players updates on the tournament’s progress.
• ScriptServer — service for running scripts.
• AdventureServer — manages adventure scenarios/events: adventure stages, conditions, activity statuses, and their updates.

Databases:

• MongoDB — main database.
• Redis — database for leaderboards. You will need to download and install this database independently if you want to enable leaderboards.

Server settings

The server address is configured in the cloud.xml configuration file. The default address is 127.0.0.1:3850. In this case, you can connect only from your local PC. If you need to connect from remote PCs, you must enter the address of the PC running the server.

Please note that even if the 127.0.0.1 address is specified, this doesn’t guarantee that remote PCs will be unable to connect; the server accepts connections from any address but provides clients with the connection address specified in the cloud.xml configuration. In other words, regular clients will not be able to connect, but an attacker could modify a client and connect to the server if they know your computer’s IP address and can use that address to connect to your PC (a public IP or one from your local network). You must take additional measures independently to prevent unauthorized users from connecting to your server.

Starting the Server

There are 3 ways to launch the server: automatic, manual launching of the database and other server applications, and by using a button in the game client.

1. Automatic launch

When you launch the game using your Steam client, the game automatically runs MongoDB and other server applications.

2. Manual launch

• Launch MongoDB using the pc\launch_mongodb.bat file. Wait until the database is fully launched.
• Launch Redis if you have it installed and wait for its launch.
• Launch the server applications using the launch_server.bat file.

3. Using the game client

You can launch the server by using the “Launch server” button on the login screen. This button executes the launch_server_and_db.bat file. The file launches the MongoDB database, waits for 3 seconds, and launches Hub, which launches the rest of the server applications. In this case, there is no guarantee that the databases will load before the server applications start running, which could cause the server applications to malfunction. If you have Redis installed, you can add a command to launch it to the launch_server_and_db.bat file.

Running server applications in windowed and windowless modes

By default, Hub runs server applications in windowless mode. If necessary, you can change the launch mode so that applications run in a window, for example, if you need access to each application’s console.

To do this, set the hub_detachChildProcesses to 0 (set hub_detachChildProcesses 0) in the “pc\cloud\data\hub.cfg” configuration file

Stopping the server

If the game was launched via the Steam client, the server will stop automatically.
If the game was launched via its .exe file, the server can only be shut down properly if the following sequence of steps is followed:

1. The server is switched to maintenance mode. To do this, run the /enterMaintenanceMode console command in the Hub, specifying the number of minutes after which the server will enter this mode.
2. Wait until all game clients have disconnected from the server.
3. Close Hub using the /quit console command.
4. Close the MongoDB database (it’s recommended to press Ctrl+C in the application window and confirm that you want to close it when prompted).
5. Close the Redis database if you have it installed.

Connecting a client to the server

If you have a local server running, select “localhost” on the login screen (this is selected by default).
If you want to connect to a remote server, select “server” from the drop-down list on the login screen; fields for entering the remote server’s address and port will appear below.

Always connect only to servers you trust, as the game client may contain vulnerabilities that could allow attackers to compromise your PC.

After selecting a server, enter your username and password, then click the “Login” button. If there is no account with the specified username in the database, a new one will be created.

Next time you log in to your account with the same username, you’ll need to enter the password you used when creating the account.

If you want to prevent the creation of new accounts, you can set the value of the variable in the Shard configuration to cvars.auth_allowInternalAutoCreate = 0

Working with databases

MongoDB:

Before working with the database, you need to make sure that your server and the game itself are not launched; otherwise, the changes in the database may be cancelled.

To work with the database, you can install Mongobooster or other similar tools that support MongoDB. Let's take a look at Mongobooster as an example. We need to connect to the database. To do this, launch the database using the launch_mongodb.bat file

Check in Mongobooster to make sure we have a connection to the database. To do this, click Create -> Test Connection.

Next, connect to your database by pressing “Save&Connect”.

Once you are connected, the database interface will appear. The database tree is displayed on the left, and on the right, the stored data will be displayed when you select one of the items. Let's take a look at an example with accounts on the server

Select cosmosim_%YOUR_LOCAL_NAME_WINDOWS% and select accounts in the opened branch. All accounts that have been registered on your server will be displayed here, including all of your own accounts.

Important: the password here is encrypted, so you can’t see it here if you forgot it.

In the account data, you can find various details showing what a player has in their account; for example, you can “adjust” the Galactic Standarts balance on your account. To do this, locate the “goldCredits” parameter in the database and set it to the desired number.

To apply the changes to the database, click the “Run” button on the top toolbar.

Removing the players’ data from the database

If you want to play from the start, you can create a new account by entering a username in the login window that isn’t already in the database. You can also delete all users and all data that the server has stored in the database by deleting the folder where the MongoDB data is stored: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Targem\StarConflict\cloud\mongodb\data. If you have a Redis database (or a compatible one) installed and the server was connected to it, you can also delete its data.

Redis:

In order to enable leaderboards, you can download the Redis database or its counterparts, which support your operating system.

Redis DBMS (database management system) as an example. First, we need to launch redis-server.exe. In the common.cfg game configuration file, we need to uncomment the set db_redisHost "127.0.0.1:6379|connpool=5" line. This is necessary for the game to connect to the Redis database. If you are using a different database, you will need to modify the configuration to match your DBMS.

To have Redis start automatically when you click “Start Server,” you need to configure it to launch in the launch_server_and_db.bat file.

Example: start "" "C:\Work\build\Redis-x64-5.0.14.1\redis-server.exe"

Here’s how to properly shut down Redis: Run redis-cli.exe and execute the SHUTDOWN command with the SAVE parameter.

Modifying the game’s databases

The game data is being stored in the “pc\data” folder.
Some of the game data files can be used by the client and then the server at the same time.

Certain server applications can read data from the same lua files as the client, such as DedicatedServer. However, most server applications read data from XML files that are generated based on the data in lua.

The game data for the server is stored in the “pc\cloud\data” folder. If you need to change the game data that is simultaneously stored in the lua and xml files, you need to change the data in the lua files first. Then you need to launch the “pc\cloud\prepare_shared.bat” file (MongoDB must be running for this to work properly), which will generate the necessary xml files. Whenever you make any changes to the data in the lua files, simply run the “pc\cloud\prepare_shared.bat” file.

Matchmaker settings

Most of the settings can be found in the "pc\cloud\data\default_platform_config.lua" file.

For each server application, there is a corresponding Lua function; for example, “ConfigureShard” for Shard or “ConfigureMatchmaker” for Matchmaker. The settings are configured within those functions.

The “pc\cloud\data” directory also contains configuration files for each application, such as shard.cfg or matchmaker.cfg, as well as a general configuration file, common.cfg, where you can specify values for variables that should apply to multiple server applications at once.

Here are the localized names of the game modes used in the matchmaker settings:

• "april_control" — “Paper conflict”
• "ARENA" — “Portals”
• "atdm" — “Paper conflict”
• "BRAWL" — “Brawls”
• "capture_the_base" — “Beacon capture”
• "capture_the_base_2" — “Four lives”
• "CloseDistance" — “Close contact”
• "CLOSE_DISTANCE" — “Close contact”
• "COOP_VS_AI" — “Skirmish”
• "CUSTOM_GAME" — “Custom battle”
• "football" — “Spaceball”
• "gtdm" — “Survival”
• "hunger_games" — “Last man standing”
• "one_against_all" — “Beetle in the Anthill”
• "OPEN_WORLD_MAP" — “Map”
• "OPEN_WORLD_START" — “Undock”
• "PVE_MISSION" — “Pick Scenario”
• "PVE_MISSIONS" — “Missions”
• "PVE_RANDOM" — “RANDOM MISSION”
• "PVP" — “PvP Arena”
• "QUESTS" — “Pick Scenario”
• "RAID" — “Special Operation”
• "RANDOM_BFS" — “Conquest”
• "sentinel" — “Combat recon”
• "three_teams_dm" — “Orion's belt”
• "TOURNAMENT" — “Tournament”
• "zombie" — “Curse of the Leviathan”

The description of the matchmaker settings can be found in the matchmaking.md file.

Localization settings

To change the in-game language you can add the following to the game’s desktop shortcut or in your Steam launch settings.

Language list:

• -lang RUSSIAN
• -lang ENGLISH
• -lang FRENCH
• -lang GERMAN
• -lang SPANISH
• -lang POLISH
• -lang PORTUGUESE
• -lang HUNGARIAN
• -lang CZECH
• -lang UKRAINIAN
• -lang CHINESE

You can also change the game language in the user_config.xml file, which can be found here: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Targem\StarConflict\

Logs

The server application logs are stored in the “%LOCALAPPDATA%\Targem\StarConflict\cloud\Hub\logs” folder.

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Source: https://star-conflict.com/en/