Icarus Server Hosting Requirements for a Crew of Eight
Icarus server hosting requirements by crew size and map: how much RAM eight players need on open world, why storms spike CPU, and what causes lag.
Icarus server hosting requirements come down to two things: how many of you play at once, and which kind of map you run. A short mission and a world you keep for months ask very different things of the same server. Size for the map your group really plays, and the storms are the only thing that should slow you down.
The short answer to Icarus server hosting requirements#
Icarus lets up to eight players into one prospect, which is the game's word for a save: a single mission or open-world map. A dedicated server holds one prospect at a time and keeps it running when nobody is logged in. Pick the plan from your crew size and the map you play.
| What you are running | Plan tier | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Up to four players, mostly timed missions | Oxite (4P) | A small crew on a mission map keeps one area of terrain and one base loaded. |
| A full crew of eight on an open-world map like Olympus | Exotic (8P) | Open-world prospects run for months, bases grow large, and players spread across the map. |
Those are starting points. A server that ends a long session pinned at its memory ceiling has no room for the next storm.
Missions versus open world#
The map type matters more than most groups expect. A mission is short and has a goal; when it ends, so does the load. An open-world prospect (Olympus, or Styx and Prometheus with the matching DLC) is a persistent world your crew keeps coming back to. It accumulates buildings, storage, and deployables, and all of that stays tracked for as long as the prospect lives.
That is why we size the larger plan around a full crew on open world, not around headcount alone. Four friends on a three-month Olympus run can outgrow a plan that eight people on a quick mission never strain.
What actually makes an Icarus server lag#
Weather. Icarus storms are server work. When a storm hits, the server works out damage to every exposed structure, and every player on the map is loading terrain at once. That spike lands on the processor, and on a few busy threads in particular, so per-core speed matters more than core count. Our Icarus servers run on AMD EPYC 4565P processors at 4.5 GHz, and we stop placing servers on a node once it reaches 60% load. We explain that cap in how our stock control works.
Big bases. Every placed piece is tracked. A sprawling base with many deployables adds load all the time, and more again when a storm damages it.
Version mismatch. Icarus patches weekly, on Wednesdays. After a patch, restart the server from the panel so it fetches the matching build; otherwise players on the new client cannot join. It looks like an outage and it is a two-minute fix.
Prospects, characters, and backups#
Each prospect is one JSON file under Icarus/Saved/PlayerData/DedicatedServer/Prospects/, and player characters live on the server too. So your crew's progression is tied to the server, which makes backups the one setting you should not skip. A nightly schedule keeps every prospect and every character recoverable; see game server backups and schedules. Backups need free disk to write into, so treat the storage on a plan as working space.
Two keys in ServerSettings.ini decide how a persistent server behaves. ShutdownIfEmptyFor=-1 keeps it up while empty, and ResumeProspect=True reloads the last prospect after a restart. Our Icarus server quickstart covers the full file, admin control, and the ports (17777 UDP for the game, 27015 UDP for the Steam query).
What our Icarus plans give you#
Our Icarus server hosting plans are sold by resources, not player slots. These figures are live, read from the same data the order pages use:
| Plan | Memory | vCPU | Storage | Monthly |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oxite (4P) | 6 GB | 2 | 20 GB NVMe | $12.99 |
| Exotic (8P) | 10 GB | 4 | 50 GB NVMe | $23.99 |
The player figure in each name is guidance, not a cap we enforce; eight per prospect is the game's own limit. vCPU is the share of a physical core reserved for your server, and it stays reserved when the node gets busy.
When to size up#
Watch the panel graphs through a couple of storms. Memory that stays high the morning after a restart means the prospect has outgrown the plan, and moving up is a prorated upgrade that keeps your prospects and characters. Lag only on Wednesday evenings, with memory well below the ceiling, is almost always a server that has not restarted onto the new build.
If you are still weighing whether to rent at all, what a game server costs lays out the math, and the same sizing logic applied to a sixteen-player building game is in Enshrouded server hosting requirements.
FAQ#
How much RAM does an Icarus dedicated server need?
It depends on the crew and the map. Four players on missions fit the smaller plan. A full crew of eight on a long open-world prospect belongs on the larger one.
How many players can join an Icarus server?
Eight per prospect, which is the game's limit, set with MaxPlayers in ServerSettings.ini. We do not sell slots; the plan decides how smoothly the prospect runs.
Why does my Icarus server lag during storms?
Storms make the server calculate damage across every exposed structure while players load terrain. A large base or a node short on per-core speed makes that spike worse. Our nodes stop taking servers at 60% load so the storm is the only spike.
Can I run several prospects on one Icarus server?
Not at the same time. The server holds one active prospect, and switching ends it for everyone. The other prospects stay saved on disk and can be loaded later.
Is a dedicated server better than hosting Icarus from my PC?
For a regular group, yes. The prospect stays open when the host logs off, and characters live on the server instead of one player's machine.