OpenTTD | Dedicated server

Dedicated server window

A dedicated server is a OpenTTD network game Server that does not have a local client taking part in the game. A dedicated server can run in the background on a computer.

1 Starting a dedicated server
2 Configuring the server
3 Controlling the server with rcon
4 Installing online content
5 Loading a game
6 Automatically start/stop and save your game
7 See also

Starting a dedicated server

Run the OpenTTD executable using the -D (capital D!) Command line option.

To load a specific save file, add -g savename.

In Windows

Method 1:

Create a shortcut to openttd.exe
Right-click on the shortcut and click Properties
Add -D onto the end of the Target line
Click Apply
Run the shortcut

Method 2:

On the start menu click Run
Enter: "c:\(path to openttd)\openttd.exe" -D
Click OK

In Linux

Run openttd -D in a terminal. If you are connecting to the server via SSH and would like the game to run when you logout you should use GNU Screen or dtach.

You can also start openttd with -f option. It means that the process will run in the background, but no console will be available. All output will be sent to the file openttd.log. You can display the log with tail : tail -f openttd.log to follow events.

In OS/2

Run the dedicated.cmd file. If you run openttd -D, you will not see a console window and will be unable to provide commands to the program.

In Mac OS X

Open Terminal.
cd into the directory with OpenTTD
type cd OpenTTD.app/Contents/MacOS/
type ./openttd -D
OpenTTD should start up in Dedicated Server.

In Docker.io

See https://registry.hub.docker.com/r/bateau/openttd/ for more details

Configuring the server

There are 3 ways to change the game options:

Launch a single player game, change the settings, and close the game.
Use the console commands to control the server while it is running.
Edit the Openttd.cfg file manually. See Diff custom for some help.

Available Tools:

Change the network settings in the Network section of Openttd.cfg:

Set Lan internet to 0.
Change Server name so you can identify the server,
Set Server advertise to true, so it will be visible on the Server list
If you have multiple network interfaces make sure you set Server bind ip.
If you are behind a router, make sure that you forward the port specified by Server port (both TCP and UDP)

Controlling the server with rcon

Configure the dedicated server to accept rcon commands:

In the dedicated server window, type rcon_pw <password>.

Example: rcon_pw x8na7f

Connect to the server as a client:

Launch OpenTTD normally.
Find your server on the multiplayer list and connect to it.
Open the console (~ key).
Type rcon <password> "<command>".

Example: rcon x8na7f "kick 5"

Installing online content

Online content (NewGRFs) can be added to the server from the console using the content command. This is preferable to manual installation, because it includes dependencies and updating.

First, you need to load the list of available content from the content server:

content update

Wait until "Content server connection closed" is printed in the console.

Find your content

content state [filter]

This will list all content that matches filter. If you omit the filter, it will list all content on the server.

Next, select the content to download using its id, which is the first number listed in the previous command's output:

content select 2947

You can add more content by repeating the content select command.

Then download all selected content:

content download

Note: This will not activate the content, you will need to modify the game settings to use it.

Loading a game

In the dedicated server window (or with rcon):

Type ls to list the files of the current directory, a number will be beside each one, which represents <number> below.
Type cd <number> to go to that directory.
Type load <number> to load that file.

You can also load savegames and scenarios with the -g "<filename>", command line option.

Example: openttd.exe -D -g "scenario/echo.scn".

Automatically start/stop and save your game

If you do not want to run docker: Run your dedicated server in ubuntu/debian you can download and install a init.d script You will get the following functions:

Automatically startup when your server box bootup
Automatically shutdown when you server box is shutdown
Automatically saving your game at a defined interval

For more functions, install guide and download, visit: https://bitbucket.org/frodus/openttd-init

With a ready-made docker container you get a tested and working environment for openttd. In ubuntu 14.04 or newer you can run: sudo apt-get install docker.io and then read documentation on the following url https://registry.hub.docker.com/r/bateau/openttd/ Mind that this is a pre-configured virtual machine and packaging is done by 3rd party.

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