Dedicated Server, No Asteroids

I signed up for a dedicated server and created a map to upload to the server. I picked the star system world/scenario and picked Infitite world with Medium Asteroids.

Well a few days later we leave the planet for the first time looking for platinum and no asteroids at all. We eventually went to the moon and dug deep and found some platinum though. However, we would still love asteroids too.

So I sent the server hosts a ticket about the issue and we've tried a few things:
- I created a new map, again star system, but this time with high asteroids as the world generator setting. I used SE tools to export our station and ships from the old map and imported them into the new map. Same result, still no asteroids.
- I tried entering the procedual lines of code into the both the dedicated server.cfg file and sandbox file. When I do this the server doesn't load properly and we can't connect or see it.
- I tried manually creating some asteroids in SE tools into the map, but as soon as the server saves it removes all of the asteroid files.

So I'm not sure what else to do here or why it isn't working. Has anyone come across this issue before?

 

Same problem with Dev version Zero asteroids at DS

 

This seems to be another arbitrary and ill thought out decision to change aspects of the game that have been satisfactory and stable for a long time. The result of this is a very large percentage of new servers being started with no asteroids. It seems common for many players to commence the game with a planetary lander and work their way to space, only to find nothing there and no means to progress or collect material, other than returning to the planet or its moon. As it's not possible to add the asteroids after initial world generation, there is much annoyance and disappointment happening.

 

Bumping this because it's still a big problem for inexperienced players starting new servers for friends, the asteroid default setting of zero is just a terrible idea, what on earth was somebody thinking ? A quick check of 30 recently opened public listed servers showed 16 were set with no asteroids.

 

So I found the solution to this after looking forever. It may seem obvious to experienced players, but to newer players it isn't obvious at all.

There are 2 ways to setup a space engineers map and server. The first way is to just launch the game as normal and have people connect to it. This will also create the same type of map you import into a dedicated server. THIS IS THE WRONG WAY if you want asteroids.

Method two is to look into your space engineers folder and find the Dedicated or Dedicated Server folder. Launch this and you're given a whole bunch of more options. This is the only way to create a world/map and import it to your dedicated host.

Unfortunately, if you created a map using method one, like most players probably do (I did), there will be no way for asteroids to be in your game. Hope this helps!

 

Still the majority of new servers started by inexperienced players have zero asteroids. This default setting makes no sense at all and just results in a lot of frustration for new players.

 

Read my post above. It is how you setup the server in game vs. the dedicated client. Which I agree, newer players are going to have no idea that there is a separate dedicated server .exe in the game's folder. Hopefully people can see this thread and figure it out.

 

While I appreciate what you're saying, that is not related to the main problem, which is that when you're configuring the server, the default asteroid density is zero, meaning no asteroids, and as there is no readily available help on that setting or indeed much of the procedure of setting up a server, it is very often left at that useless default.

 

It is exactly the problem. When you setup the server through the game, it doesn't create the necessary framework for asteroids if you move those files to a dedicated server. If you instead create the game from the dedicated server .exe, with all the exact same settings, it WILL have asteroids when you move it to a dedicated server because that is the method you are supposed to use for dedicated servers. Creating a map inside the game client is NOT meant for dedicated servers, so when you move that data to a dedicated server, no asteroids. That is exactly the problem...

 

No, I'm sorry Perhaps I'm not making it clear. The problem is not the method, the problem is the default density setting is zero, which means NO asteroids, but because of lack of useful documentation or readily available help that setting is not clearly understood, and so it is left at zero. This zero setting was a relatively recent change, the older default settings did not have this problem. My point is, this change was a bad decision.

 

Having problems with asteroids myself. Specifically what folder and file are these settings under?

 

In the case of an existing *local* game, check these settings:

<ProceduralDensity>x</ProceduralDensity> <--- the numerical value of x should be more than zero for asteroids to be produced.
<ProceduralSeed>y</ProceduralSeed> a figure of 0.5 gives a moderate density. The seed y can be any 9 digit integer.

- they will be in the plain text file Sandbox.sbc normally in the folder

C:\Users\<your username>\AppData\Roaming\SpaceEngineers\Saves\<your steam id64 number>\<name of game save>

For a server the settings are duplicated in the Sandbox.sbc normally in folder C:\ProgramData\SpaceEngineersDedicated\<game name>\Saves
and in the C:\ProgramData\SpaceEngineersDedicated\<game name>\SpaceEngineers-Dedicated.cfg

and it's safest to edit both, when the server is shut down.

 

Thanks for the help, yea the lines weren't in there so had to add them. But it works, thanks.