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How to Host a Space Engineers Server on a VPS (2026)

Published May 4, 2026 · 6 min read · Galaxy Cloud Solutions

Space Engineers is a game about building things in space, which is deeply satisfying, and also about your friend disconnecting at a critical moment and taking the server with them, which is deeply not satisfying. A dedicated server solves the second problem. Everyone can keep engineering even when no one is the designated host. You need a bit more RAM than most games though. Space Engineers is not lightweight.

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What You Need

• VPS with at least 4GB RAM (Space Engineers is memory-hungry)
• 30GB+ free disk space
• Ubuntu 24.04
• SteamCMD

Step 1: Install SteamCMD and Dependencies

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y lib32gcc-s1 curl screen libcurl4
mkdir -p ~/steamcmd && cd ~/steamcmd
curl -sqL "https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/client/installer/steamcmd_linux.tar.gz" | tar zxf -

Step 2: Download the Server

mkdir -p ~/se
~/steamcmd/steamcmd.sh +force_install_dir ~/se +login anonymous +app_update 298740 validate +quit

Step 3: Create a Start Script

cat > ~/se/start.sh << 'EOF'
#!/bin/bash
cd ~/se
screen -dmS se mono ~/se/DedicatedServer64/SpaceEngineersDedicated.exe   -noconsole   -path ~/se/saves
EOF
chmod +x ~/se/start.sh

Step 4: Configure the Server

On first run, Space Engineers generates a config in ~/se/saves/. Edit SpaceEngineers-Dedicated.cfg to set your server name, password, and game settings.

Step 5: Open Ports and Start

On a Galaxy Cloud VPS, open these ports under Firewall Rules on your VPS page in the client portal too, before you start the server. Everything except SSH stays closed until you do.

sudo ufw allow 27016/udp
sudo ufw allow 27016/tcp
~/se/start.sh

Connect From the Game

In Space Engineers, go to Join Game → Direct Connect and enter your VPS IP with port 27016.

Performance Notes

Space Engineers performance degrades as worlds get larger and more complex. A fresh world runs fine on 4GB RAM. A world with lots of large grids and active pistons/rotors may need more. Monitor RAM usage with free -h and consider upgrading to 8GB if things get sluggish.