Stardew Valley Multiplayer: How to Play With Friends (and Keep the Farm Online 24/7)

Stardew Valley multiplayer lets up to eight players share one farm on PC. There's one catch that every co-op group runs into sooner or later: the farm only exists while the host is playing. The wiki puts it plainly: "If the host isn't online or the farm isn't currently open to other players, then farmhands can't access the world or their characters in that world."

This guide covers the three normal ways to play with friends, then the fourth: a server that stays online as the host, so anyone can log in and keep farming whenever they want. The server section is written against the setup GameServerKings actually installs, including the five mods it adds, the VNC step on first boot, and the settings the panel changes every time the server starts.

Version this page was checked against

Stardew Valley 1.6.15 (the latest patch, released 20 December 2024) and SMAPI 4.3.2, which is the version the GameServerKings installer puts on the server.

The ways to play Stardew Valley with friends

A few rules apply however you connect:

• PC only plays with PC. Windows, macOS and Linux copies can play together. PC can't join PlayStation, Xbox or Switch farms.
• Eight players maximum on PC: the host plus seven farmhands. Consoles are limited to four, except the Switch 2, which allows eight online.
• One cabin per farmhand. A farmhand can only join if there's an empty cabin. The PC version allows up to seven cabins. You can pick them when you create the farm, or have Robin build them later for 100g each. Cabins are built instantly, so a group can add them on day one.

How co-op works

The player who created the world is the host. The save file lives on the host's machine, and everyone else is a farmhand. Farmhands have their own skills, energy, relationships and mailboxes. The farmland, the Community Center and museum progress are shared.

Two settings are worth deciding before you create a co-op farm:

• Profit margin (25%, 50%, 75% or 100%) scales down how much most goods sell for, to make up for the extra hands. It can't be changed after the farm is created without editing the save.
• Shared or separate money can be set at creation and changed later from the Town Ledger in the Mayor's Manor.

The host also has chat commands the farmhands don't: /kick, /ban, /unban, /unbanAll, /pause, /resume, /moveBuildingPermission off|owned|on, and /unlinkPlayer <name>. The last one fixes the "this character belongs to another player" error. The kick and ban commands work on PC, but not on consoles or WeGame.

Why a server changes co-op

When a group plays through someone's PC, the farm is closed whenever that person is offline. A server takes the host role and never logs off. On GameServerKings, that works like this:

• The server runs the full Stardew Valley game, loaded through SMAPI (the mod loader), on a virtual screen with no monitor attached. It is a real copy of the game, not a separate server program. It is installed with a Steam account that owns the game.
• A mod called Always On Server plays the host character. It sleeps at night, clicks through the end-of-day screens and cutscenes, and handles festivals, so the days keep moving for everyone else. Its author puts it simply: "Only the player hosting needs the mod!"

The installer adds these five mods to the server's Mods folder:

Your players don't need these five mods

They run on the server's copy of the game. Friends join with an ordinary copy of Stardew Valley, and they don't need SMAPI unless you add content mods to the server. Mods that add content are covered in How to Install Stardew Valley Expanded (Solo, Co-op and on a Server).

Setting up the server

1. Give it a Steam account that owns the game

Stardew Valley isn't a free download for servers, so the installer logs in to Steam as you. On the Startup tab, set:

• Steam User: your Steam username. This field can't be empty, and anonymous login won't work.
• Steam Password: this is only needed for the first install. The variable's own description suggests replacing it with a fake password afterwards.
• Steam Auth: your Steam Guard code, if the account uses one.

Then reinstall the server from the Settings tab so the installer runs with those details.

2. Open the VNC screen and create the farm

The first co-op farm has to be created in the game's own menus, so the server opens a VNC remote screen at first:

1. In the Network tab, add a second port (an additional allocation). Put that port number in the VNC Port variable.
2. Set your own VNC Password before you start the server. Don't keep the default: it ships with the public installer, so anyone who knows the installer knows it. Use something long that you don't use anywhere else.
3. Start the server. The console shows it as running once SMAPI prints Type 'help' for help.
4. Connect with any VNC client (for example TigerVNC or RealVNC Viewer) to your-server-ip:VNC-port, using your VNC password.
5. In the game, choose Co-op → Host → Host New Farm. Add a cabin for each friend and choose the profit margin and money settings, then start.
6. Once you're on the farm, restart the server from the panel. Reconnect over VNC and check that it loaded straight back into the farm. Auto Load Game does this.
7. Set Use VNC to 0 and restart. The VNC screen is only needed for setup, and turning it off saves resources.

3. Set the player limit

Change the Player Limit variable, which defaults to 4. Don't edit Mods/UnlimitedPlayers/config.json by hand. The panel rewrites that file from the variable every time the server starts. Each extra player also needs a cabin.

The Render FPS variable is marked experimental. Values below 30 (the developer suggests 5) cut the server's CPU use a lot. The trade-off isn't documented, so change it only if CPU use is a problem.

How friends join

1. Launch Stardew Valley and click Co-op.
2. Open the Join tab and choose Join LAN Game.
3. Type the server's address with its port, for example 203.0.113.10:27015. The address is shown at the top of your server's panel page.
4. Choose an empty cabin and create a character.

The port is always your server's main port. The panel writes it into the Port Changer mod's config on every boot, so there's nothing to set. If nobody can connect, see Players Can't Connect to My Server.

Join by IP address as shown above. The server's copy of the game runs without a Steam client, and we haven't confirmed that joining from the Steam friends list or with an invite code works with it.

Moving an existing farm to the server

You can bring a farm you've already been playing. Save files are folders named like FarmName_123456789.

1. Take a backup of the server first.
2. On your PC, find the save folder (%appdata%\StardewValley\Saves on Windows, ~/.config/StardewValley/Saves on macOS and Linux).
3. Upload the whole folder over SFTP into the Saves folder the server uses. The installer creates .config/StardewValley in the server root. If the farm you created over VNC shows up in .config/StardewValley/Saves/, put your folder next to it. If you can't find it there, contact support before uploading.
4. Turn VNC on, load the farm once from Co-op → Host, then restart so Auto Load Game picks it up.

The old host's character becomes the server's character

The server plays as the farm's host. If you were the host of that save, your character will now be run by Always On Server and hidden in the Desert. You would join as a farmhand in a cabin, with a new character. If you'd rather keep playing that character yourself, leave the save on your PC and start a fresh farm on the server.

Common problems

• Players can't connect. Check the server is running and not sitting at the title screen. If Auto Load Game can't find a save, turn VNC on and load the farm manually.
• No room to join. Every farmhand needs an empty cabin. Build one from Robin's shop over VNC, or ask a player already on the farm to buy it.
• "This character belongs to another player." The host has to run /unlinkPlayer <name>. On the server the host is the bot, so type it in the in-game chat over VNC.
• The day never ends. Always On Server's chat commands, typed by any player, can unstick the host: !sleep, !festival, !event, !leave, and !unstick.
• Time mods or cheats misbehave. The Always On Server author warns that anything that changes the game time or date can confuse the bot. See Stardew Valley Cheats and Console Commands (SMAPI, Debug and Chat) before you use time commands.

What to Read Next

• How to Install Stardew Valley Expanded (Solo, Co-op and on a Server) — run Stardew Valley Expanded on the server, and get every player on the same mod versions
• Stardew Valley Cheats and Console Commands (SMAPI, Debug and Chat) — what the panel console can do, and which cheats work for farmhands
• How to Mod Stardew Valley — SMAPI, content packs, and adding mods to the server
• How to create a backup — take one before you move a save or add mods
• How to upload files via SFTP — for save folders and the Mods folder

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