How to Host a Satisfactory Server on LoafHosts

Hosting a Satisfactory dedicated server means your factory keeps running and your friends can keep building even when your own PC is off. On LoafHosts your Satisfactory server runs around the clock on its own machine, and once it is online you tune it from a friendly in-panel Config Editor instead of hunting through files over FTP. This guide explains exactly what that Config Editor does, where to find it, and the one rule that matters most: Satisfactory rewrites its own settings files when it shuts down, so you save changes while the server is stopped and they take effect the next time you start it. Everything below describes only what the panel actually does — every setting, range, and default is the real behaviour of the editor.

What the Config Editor Edits

Satisfactory keeps its server settings in plain text configuration files inside the game folder, under FactoryGame/Saved/Config/LinuxServer/. The Config Editor reads and writes those real files directly — there is no separate copy and no guessing. The three files it works with are Game.ini, Engine.ini, and GameUserSettings.ini. Instead of asking you to remember section names and exact keys, the editor presents the safe, high-confidence settings as a simple grouped form, then writes each one back to the correct line in the correct file for you.

The form covers four small groups: Gameplay, Saves, Network, and Events. Each one maps to a single real setting that is known to persist on a Satisfactory dedicated server, so you are not exposed to a wall of engine options that do nothing.

Note: The editor writes the actual on-disk .ini files, not a panel-only copy — what you see is what the server reads.

Note: Every value you can change lives in Game.ini, Engine.ini, or GameUserSettings.ini under FactoryGame/Saved/Config/LinuxServer.

Note: Only settings verified to actually stick on a dedicated server are exposed — there are no placebo toggles.

Finding the Config Editor in the Panel

On a Satisfactory server, open the server in the LoafHosts panel and look at the left sidebar under the Game section. You will find a Config Editor item there, sitting just under Change Game / Change Location and above the other game tools. Clicking it opens the editor in the main content area; the page is headed Config Editor with a small Satisfactory tag so you always know which server you are tuning.

The item only appears on Satisfactory servers that have the editor enabled, so you will not see it on a Minecraft or Rust server. The editor also stays out of the way for team members who should not touch settings: a subuser needs the generic config read permission to open it and the config update permission to save. Without read access the editor is simply hidden; without update access it can be viewed but not saved.

Note: The Config Editor lives in the sidebar Game section, near Change Game and Change Location.

Tip: The page title shows a Satisfactory tag — a quick confirmation you are editing the right server.

Note: Subusers need config-read to open the editor and config-update to save; the same permissions are shared with the other game config editors.

Stop the Server Before You Save

This is the single most important thing to know about the Satisfactory Config Editor. Satisfactory rewrites its own .ini files when it shuts down gracefully, which means any change written while the server is running would be silently overwritten the next time it stops. To protect you from that, the editor only allows saving while the server is fully stopped.

You can open the editor and review all of your current values at any time, in any power state — reading is always allowed. But the Save button is disabled until the server is offline. When the server is running, a banner at the top explains that you need to stop it first and shows the current state. Once the server is stopped, that banner turns green and reads that changes will apply when you start the server again. If you somehow submit a save while the server is still running, the panel refuses it with a clear message rather than letting the change be clobbered.

The workflow is therefore always the same: stop the server, make your edits, click Save config, then start the server to apply them. After a successful save the editor confirms with “Saved — start your server to apply.”

Note: Saving is blocked unless the server is fully stopped — Satisfactory overwrites these files on shutdown.

Tip: You can read and review every value while the server is running; only saving requires it to be stopped.

Note: Changes never take effect instantly — they apply on the next start, which is exactly when Satisfactory reads the files back in.

Gameplay and Saves

The Gameplay group holds a single setting: Max Players. This controls how many people can be connected at once and is written to Game.ini. It accepts a whole number from 1 to 8, and the documented default is 4. Satisfactory is tuned for around four players, and the editor’s own help text notes that going higher is unofficial and can hurt performance — useful to keep in mind before you push it to eight.

The Saves group also holds one setting: Rotating Autosaves, written to Engine.ini. This is how many rotating autosave files the server keeps. It accepts a whole number from 1 to 10, with a default of 3. Raising it keeps more save history at the cost of disk space; lowering it keeps fewer.

Tip: Max Players ranges 1 to 8 and defaults to 4 — Satisfactory plays best around four players.

Tip: Rotating Autosaves (1 to 10, default 3) controls how many autosave files are kept before the oldest is recycled.

Note: Each form field shows the file it writes to, so you always know whether a setting lives in Game.ini or Engine.ini.

Network Timeouts

The Network group has two settings, both written to Engine.ini and both measured in seconds. Initial Connect Timeout is how long the server waits for a brand-new connection to establish before dropping it; raise this if players on slow connections get kicked while joining. Connection Timeout is how long an already-established connection can go quiet before the server considers it timed out.

Both accept a number from 10 to 120 seconds and default to 30. They take decimal values, but the editor tidies them up for you — a value like 30.0 is stored simply as 30 so the file is not churned with cosmetic differences. If you do not have a specific connection problem, the defaults are fine and you can leave both alone.

Tip: Raise Initial Connect Timeout if players on slow links get dropped mid-join.

Note: Both timeouts accept 10 to 120 seconds and default to 30.

Tip: Decimal entries are normalised — 30.0 is saved as 30, so repeated saves don’t needlessly rewrite the file.

Seasonal Events

The Events group has a single toggle: Disable Seasonal Events, written to GameUserSettings.ini. Turning it on disables Satisfactory’s seasonal events (such as FICSMAS). By default it is off, so seasonal events run normally.

There is one honest quirk worth knowing, and the editor states it plainly in the field’s help text. When you enable this toggle, the setting does apply — but the game engine consumes that line and removes it from the file on the next restart, even though the effect stays in place. Because the editor reads what is actually in the file, after a restart the toggle will show as disabled again (“enabled (default)”) even though seasonal events remain off. In other words: trust the action you took, not the toggle’s appearance after a restart. Internally, switching the toggle off again removes the line entirely so the game falls back to its default of events enabled.

Note: Disable Seasonal Events is off by default — seasonal events (FICSMAS) run unless you turn it on.

Note: After a restart the toggle can read as off again even though events stay disabled — the engine strips the line but keeps the effect. This is expected.

Tip: Turning the toggle back off removes the setting entirely, returning the server to default behaviour.

Editing Game.ini and Engine.ini Directly

For anyone who wants finer control than the form offers, the editor includes raw tabs. Alongside the Form tab there are Game.ini (raw) and Engine.ini (raw) tabs, each showing the full text of that file in a monospaced editor. Whatever you type is saved verbatim, so it is the explicit “I know what I’m doing” path — anything you set there that is not in the form is at your own risk.

A few rules keep the raw editor safe. Raw editing is offered only for Game.ini and Engine.ini (not GameUserSettings.ini). The same offline rule applies: the raw text areas are read-only until the server is stopped. And when you save a file from a raw tab, that raw content wins for that file — the form edits for the same file are not double-applied on top of your hand-written text. The form’s targeted edits are otherwise lossless: changing one value in the form rewrites only that one key and leaves your comments and other lines exactly as they were.

Tip: Use the raw tabs only when the form doesn’t cover what you need — raw content is saved exactly as typed.

Note: Raw editing is available for Game.ini and Engine.ini; GameUserSettings.ini is form-only.

Note: A raw save for a file takes precedence over form edits to that same file, so the two never silently fight each other.

What the Config Editor Does Not Change

Some Satisfactory settings do not live in these text files at all. Your server’s name, its passwords, and the admin password are stored in a separate binary save blob and are managed in-game through Satisfactory’s own Server Manager when you first claim and set up the server. The Config Editor says as much right on the page: server name, passwords, and game rules are set in-game via the Server Manager, not here. So if you are looking to rename your server or change its join password, that happens in the game client, while the day-to-day knobs — player count, autosaves, timeouts, and seasonal events — live here in the panel.

Note: Server name, passwords, and the admin password are set in the in-game Server Manager, not in the Config Editor.

Tip: Use the in-game Server Manager once to claim and name the server; use the panel Config Editor for ongoing settings.

Putting It Together

Hosting a Satisfactory server on LoafHosts comes down to a short, repeatable loop. Claim and name the server once through the in-game Server Manager. Then, whenever you want to adjust how it plays, open the Config Editor from the sidebar, stop the server, change Max Players, Rotating Autosaves, the connection timeouts, or seasonal events, click Save config, and start the server again to apply. Because the editor writes the real Game.ini and Engine.ini files and validates every value against its allowed range before saving, you get the convenience of a form with the honesty of editing the actual files — and the offline rule means a careless save can never be quietly wiped out by the game itself.