Subsistence is a game created by ColdGames and based on the Unreal Engine. The game is still in active development and published on Steam. Currently, there is no official way to create a dedicated server and the developer has promised that a dedicated server mode will be available.

However, due to the Unreal Engine, a dedicated server can indeed be created with some little changes. Furthermore, if so desired, an existing save file can be used.

Preferably, one would install a Subsistence server on a dedicated machine separate from others.

• A Windows computer with at least 4GiB of RAM (Subsistence tends to consume ) with the following packages installed:
  • Windows 7 and upward.
  • .NET 4.7.2
  • Visual Studio Runtime 2010 x86 and x64.
• The Non-Sucking Service Manager (NSSM)
• A few gigabytes of storage (Subsistence consumes ).
• Subsistence itself - the root folder of the game needs to be copied over to a location that will be shown in this tutorial.

The contents of the steam folder are extracted and placed in the folder with the path C:\Subsistence\Subsistence 20190329. In other words, the UDK.exe binary should be found at C:\Subsistence\Subsistence 20190329\Binaries\Win32\UDK.exe.

The following is an incomplete representation of what the filesystem should look like:

+ C:
  +
  |
  +------+ Subsistence
               +
               |
               |
               +---------+ Subsistence 20190329
                                     +
                                     |
                                     |
                                     +--------+ Binaries
                                              |    +
                                              |    |
                                              |    +-------+ Win32
                                              |            |   +
                                              |            |   |
                                              |            |   +----------+ UDK.exe
                                              |            |              |
                                              |            + Redist       +
                                              |            |              .
                                              |            + InstallData  .
                                              |            |              .
                                              |            .
                                              |            .
                                              |            .
                                              |
                                              + Engine
                                              |
                                              + Redist
                                              |
                                              + UDKGame
                                              |
                                              .
                                              .
                                              .

Open a command prompt with Administrator privileges (type cmd and right-click on the cmd.exe or Command Prompt to select Run as Administrator…). And then type the following command to change directory into the C:\Subsistence\Subsistence 20190329\Binaries\Win32 folder:

cd C:\Subsistence\Subsistence 20190329\Binaries\Win32

Now, to check that the dedicated server starts up properly, UDK.exe will be ran from the command line in server mode with a bunch of parameters. Type in the same command prompt:

UDK.exe server "ColdMap1?Name=Host?Team=255?listen?bIsLanMatch=true?NumPublicConnections=4?NumPrivateConnections=0?NumOpenPublicConnections=4?NumOpenPrivateConnections=0?bShouldAdvertise=True?bUsesStats=True?bAllowJoinInProgress=True?bAllowInvites=True?bUsesPresence=True?bAllowJoinViaPresence=True?bAllowJoinViaPresenceFriendsOnly=False?bUsesArbitration=False?bAntiCheatProtected=False?bIsDedicated=True?OwningPlayerName=Cricket?PingInMs=0?MatchQuality=0.000000?GameState=OGS_Pending?GamePassword=?MaxPlayers=4?ProfileId=2?HuntersDisabled=False?Difficulty=normal?HunterAttacks=0?ColdServerName=Host<gs>1,1,0?"

The command prompt should return control after a minute and it may seem that nothing happened but after a few minutes a new console should appear saying that the server and game has been created.

Launch Subsistence from a different computer and try to connect to your server IP address from the Co op menu in Subsistence, and, if all goes well, you should appear in the Subsistence world. Congratulations!

In order to make Subistence restart after an eventual power outage or in case the server is restarted, NSSM can be used to create a background service that blends with the operating system. From the download section of the NSSM website a zip file can be downloaded that contains a file nssm.exe which can be placed in C:\Windows\System32\ in order to make it available from the command line.

Assuming that nssm.exe has been copied to C:\Windows\System32\, open an elevated command prompt and issue the command:

nssm install Subsistence 

which should start a GUI to configure a service named Subsistence.

The following configuration has to be made using the GUI for the various tables of the GUI.

On the Application tab - this tab is where you get to tell NSSM which program to start and with what parameters:

• Path - C:\Subsistence\Subsistence 20190329\Binaries\Win32\UDK.exe
• Startup directory - C:\Subsistence\Subsistence 20190329\Binaries\Win32
• Arguments - server "ColdMap1?Name=Host?Team=255?listen?bIsLanMatch=true?NumPublicConnections=4?NumPrivateConnections=0?NumOpenPublicConnections=4?NumOpenPrivateConnections=0?bShouldAdvertise=True?bUsesStats=True?bAllowJoinInProgress=True?bAllowInvites=True?bUsesPresence=True?bAllowJoinViaPresence=True?bAllowJoinViaPresenceFriendsOnly=False?bUsesArbitration=False?bAntiCheatProtected=False?bIsDedicated=True?OwningPlayerName=Cricket?PingInMs=0?MatchQuality=0.000000?GameState=OGS_Pending?GamePassword=?MaxPlayers=4?ProfileId=2?HuntersDisabled=False?Difficulty=normal?HunterAttacks=0?ColdServerName=Host<gs>1,1,0?"

On the Details tab:

• Display name - Subsistence
• Description - any desired server description
• Startup type - Automatic (such that the server will start on boot)
• Service name - Subsistence

On the Exit actions tab:

• Throttling - 1500ms
• Restart - Restart application,
  • Delay restart by - 250ms

Once done, press the Install service button to install the service.

To test whether everything is working alright, start services.msc (type services.msc in the start menu search bar) and locate the newly created service by name Subsistence. You can now click Start, followed by Stop to check that the server starts and stops properly.

The service is configured to start when Windows boots and, furthermore, in case the server happens to crash, Windows will restart it.

Now that you have your Subsistence dedicated server running, several tools can help monitor and manage the service. First, a program such as WinTail can be used to display the server log file in real time. The most recent server log file will be located at C:\Subsistence\Subsistence 20190329\UDKGame\Logs\Launch.exe.

All the Subsistence server save games can be found at C:\Subsistence\Subsistence 20190329\Binaries\Win32 and prefixed with serverSaveGame. If so desired, the files can be replaced with some save game files that you already have. In any case, it is ideal for your connecting clients and the server to delete the save files and start afresh.

At the current time of writing there are major issues with running a Subsistence dedicated server, notably:

• Fishing will simply not work at all. Casting the rod will just fail.
• Saving games in general is totally and utterly broken. After a longer while, the server seems to overwrite the save slots such that everything that was built will be gone. This may have to do with the way the game manages save slots.
• It is uncertain how / whether the game is advertised via Steam.