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Getting started with your Vintage Story server

Complete your first boot, use core console commands, manage .vcdbs world files, and tune serverconfig.json for smooth seasonal changes.

Updated August 07, 2026
Vintage Story

Vintage Story is a deep technological survival sandbox with realistic crafting chains, geology, and seasonal systems. Your server is light to run and quick to boot, with strong modding through the game's official ModDB.

First Boot

  1. Open your Vintage Story game server in the panel.

  2. Click Start.

  3. First boot pulls the server files (about 500 MB; very small), which takes 3 to 5 minutes.

  4. The console shows Server program version: x.x.x followed by Server entering RUNNING state.

To connect: in Vintage Story, Multiplayer > Direct Connect, enter the IP and port from the Address at the top left of your panel.

In-Game Admin Commands

/time set day
/time set night
/weather set sunny
/weather set rain
/tp <player>
/tpp <player1> <player2>     Teleport one player to another
/gamemode 0/1/2              0=survival, 1=creative, 2=spectator
/give <item> <count>
/spawn                       Teleport to spawn
/setspawn                    Set spawn at your location
/clear                       Clear chat
/savemap                     Save the world
/stop                        Shut down the server
/kick <player>
/ban <player>
/unban <player>
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World Management

Worlds are at Saves/ in the data folder. Each world is a .vcdbs (SQLite) file plus folders for chunks and player data.

To wipe:

  1. Stop the server.

  2. Delete or rename the world file.

  3. Restart. A new world generates with the seed from serverconfig.json.

To upload a single-player save:

  1. Find your local save at %AppData%\VintagestoryData\Saves\.

  2. Upload to the server's Saves/.

  3. Update serverconfig.json's WorldName field.

Backups

World saves are small (50 MB to 2 GB even for long-running servers). Daily panel Backups are very cheap.

The game takes its own backups too

Vintage Story also creates in-engine backups in Backups/ automatically every few hours.

Performance Tips

  • Lower MaxChunkRadius if you see chunk-load lag (12 is a good compromise)
  • Schedule a daily restart to clear cached chunk memory
  • Watch the console for chunk save messages; if they take longer than 5 seconds, your disk I/O is the bottleneck

Common Issues

  • Server not in public list: Confirm AdvertiseServer: true. The list also takes a few minutes to populate on first boot.
  • Mods fail to load: Check the console log for the failure reason. Usually a missing dependency like CommonLib.
  • Cannot connect with "version mismatch": Player is on a different VS version. Game updates frequently; restart the server to pull the latest version.
  • World load slow: Normal for older saves with many explored chunks. 30-60 seconds is typical for a year-old save.

Made with 💜 by GameServerKings

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