Pause when nobody is on makes the world wait for players. When the server is empty, the game holds the world still until someone joins. The switch (PauseGameWhenEmpty in the game’s SpaceEngineers-Dedicated.cfg) is in the Server group of Server settings in the Config Editor.
It is not the same as Standby. Pause keeps the server running with the world held. Standby stops the server completely after nobody has played for a while.
Turn it on
- Open the server and choose the Config Editor tab.
- Choose Server settings (1).
- In the Server card, find Pause when nobody is on. Its help line says: “The world waits for players. Standby still stops an empty server after its time.”
- Switch it on, then press Save.
- Server settings tab
When it takes effect
At the next start. The page says “Saved changes apply after a restart.” Press Restart at the top of the page when no one is playing. A normal stop saves the world first.
Pause or Standby
- Pause when nobody is on is a setting of the game. The server stays up, and the world waits.
- Standby is a panel feature, on the Settings tab. Its switch is Stop the server when nobody plays on it, and After nobody plays for sets the time. A new server has Standby on with 10 days. The stop is a normal one that saves the world, and nothing is deleted.
- When Standby has stopped the server, start it from the panel or with the Wake link on the Standby card. See Standby on a Space Engineers server.
You can use both. Pause covers the hours with nobody on. Standby ends a server that has been empty for days.
If it does not work
- The server still shows as Running with nobody on. That is expected. Pause holds the world, it does not stop the server. Use Standby to stop it.
- The change did not apply. Restart the server after saving.
- The switch is missing. It is on Server settings, not World settings.
More about the game: Space Engineers servers.
Sources: spaceengineers.wiki.gg: Setting up a Space Engineers Dedicated Server