Planet Explorers is an open world sandbox adventure RPG game set on a distant planet. The game uses a new OpenCL calculated voxel system to allow players to change the terrain in any way, create new objects such as weapons, vehicles, objects, and do it anywhere.
Planet Explorers Dedicated Server can be run as a Windows Service using FireDaemon Pro. FireDaemon Pro will allow you to start a Planet Explorers Dedicated Server automatically at boot prior to login, start multiple instances of Planet Explorers Dedicated Server and restart Planet Explorers Dedicated Server should it crash. This HOWTO will show you how to set it up. You can also use FireDaemon Fusion to manage FireDaemon and other Windows services via your web browser.
Planet Explorers Dedicated Server Setup Under FireDaemon Pro
You can only install the server files if you own a copy of the game. The easy way to install them is via Steam's SteamPipe servers, but the caveat to this is that the Steam account must have Planet Explorers owned on it. We suggest that you do not use your local client version of Steam as it will be logged out when you install/update the server files and you risk having your Steam account hijacked/stolen should your server ever be hacked (since the hackers could then get access to your Steam account).
First, make a new Steam account for your server. If you want to use your existing steam account that already has Planet Explorers, then skip to downloading SteamCMD.
Purchase Planet Explorers from here and gift it to the server account you just created.
Download and extract SteamCMD. The download is small (< 2 MB).
Now, go to the directory where you installed SteamCMD and create a shortcut to "SteamCMD.exe". In the shortcut, edit the properties and in the target box, at the end of it (with a space before the following), put:
+login USERNAME PASSWORD +force_install_dir "C:\Planet Explorers" +app_update 237870 validate +quit
Note: Replace USERNAME with your Steam username and PASSWORD with your Steam password. You will need to enter a verification string if your Steam account has SteamGuard enabled. The verification string will be sent to the email you set up as your Steam account email. This string only needs to be filled in once.
Now run the shortcut you just created to download the Planet Explorers server files. It might take a while to download everything because there are over 4.70 GB of files. You should also run the shortcut every month or so to grab the latest server updates. Stop your server first before doing this.
The server config is located in "C:\Planet Explorers\Server\ConfigFiles\ServerConfig.conf". Edit this file to suit your preferences.
Download and install FireDaemon Pro into the directory of your choice (typically C:\Program Files\FireDaemon).
Next, start the FireDaemon Pro GUI from the desktop shortcut. Click on the "Create a new service definition" button in the toolbar (or type Ctrl+N) and enter the information into the fields as you see below. Adjust paths to suit your installation.
Executable: The path to your PE_Server.exe file. For the purposes of this HOWTO, the path is C:\Planet Explorers\Server\PE_Server.exe.
Working Directory: The directory containing your PE_Server.exe file. For the purposes of this HOWTO, the path is C:\Planet Explorers\Server.
The most important field on the tab is the Parameters. The Parameters define the initial setup of your server.
-batchmode
"-batchmode" - Runs the server in headless mode (no graphics). This command should never be removed because the server will not start with graphics as a Windows Service.
Now click on the Settings tab. You can optionally run Planet Explorers Dedicated Server as the user you installed it as. In the Logon Account field type your username (eg. Administrator) and then enter the user's password twice in the Password and Confirm fields. You can change the Process Priority to allocate more CPU time to the dedicated server or specify which cores the dedicated server will run on.
Now click on the Lifecycle tab. Uncheck Graceful Shutdown.
Now click on the Install button to install and start Planet Explorers Dedicated Server!
NOTE: Planet Explorers Dedicated Server does not create any window, even when Interact with Desktop on the Settings tab is checked so check your Task Manager and look for the "PE_Server.exe" process.