ATLAS Server Hosting

ATLAS in One Paragraph

ATLAS is a pirate survival game from Grapeshot Games and Instinct Games, released into Early Access on 22 December 2018. You build a ship piece by piece, from a raft to a galleon, recruit players or NPCs as crew, and sail a huge ocean in real time. The official world on Steam is described as more than 700 landmasses across 45,000 square kilometres, with skills spread across 15 disciplines. On the official servers that ocean is shared by thousands of players at once.

A private server shrinks that idea to the size of your group. You keep the shipbuilding, the treasure hunting and the naval fights, but the islands, rules and population are yours to decide. Nobody burns your shipyard while you sleep unless you invited them.

How Cells and Grids Work

ATLAS divides its ocean into a grid. Each square of that grid, a cell, is run by its own server process. The official ServerGridEditor wiki shows each cell started with its own launch line, where ServerX and ServerY give its position in the grid and SeamlessIP holds the public address that lets players sail from one cell into the next.

One cell on its own is a complete game: you can sail, build and fight inside it. More cells give you more ocean and more islands, and let a crowd spread out instead of fighting over one coastline.

How Our Order Form Sells ATLAS

Our ATLAS products sit in their own store group, separate from the other game servers. The plans on this page are the first cell, ordered as Atlas Master Server, where you choose the players per cell, the RAM and the location. Every extra cell is ordered as Atlas Slave Server, with exactly the same players per cell prices. A three cell world is therefore one master and two extra cells, each billed as its own order.

• First cell: the Master Server order, priced on the cards above.
• Each extra cell: a Slave Server order at the same price for the same player count.
• Ready-made bundles: the store group also lists fixed 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 cell servers, each with its own options.
• Mix sizes: a busy hub cell can have more players and RAM than a quiet ocean cell.

Designing Your Own Grid

Grapeshot's ServerGridEditor is published on GitHub, with a wiki that walks through the process. You choose the number of cells, place islands and freeports, and export the result. The editor writes ServerGrid.json, ServerGrid.ServerOnly.json and a set of map images, which belong in the ShooterGame folder of each cell.

1. Lay out the grid in ServerGridEditor and give your world a unique WorldAtlasId.
2. Keep the cell size at or below the editor's recommended maximum of 1,400,000 units, as the wiki warns about larger values.
3. Mark the cells where players may spawn as home servers, or the wiki's launch option that makes every cell a home server.
4. Export, then upload the files to each cell with SFTP.
5. Start the cells, watch the Log Viewer, and sail across a border to test the handover.

The wiki strongly recommends setting your own Redis password rather than keeping the default, and keeping database details in the server-only file.

Players per Cell and Memory

Because each cell is its own server, both player slots and memory are set per cell. A cell's limit is how many people can be inside that square of ocean at once, not in the whole world. A crew of eight sailing together needs a cell that holds eight, while a world of thirty spread across four cells needs fewer slots per cell than you might think.

Grapeshot gives no memory figure for a cell, so we size it ourselves: 5GB with 10 players, 8GB with 20, 12GB with 40 and 16GB with 70. Large ships, anchored fleets, claimed land and tamed creatures all sit in memory, so the hub cell where everyone docks usually needs the most. Use the memory graph in each cell's panel and upgrade only the cells that need it.

Claims, Discoveries and House Rules

The ServerGridEditor wiki documents a handful of Game.ini settings that change how a world feels. Claim flag settings control how land ownership works and how quickly unattended claims decay. A discovery setting controls how many levels players earn from finding new places. Home server settings can limit the experience players earn in their home cell.

• On a small crew world, relaxed claim rules stop arguments over who owns the best cove.
• On a public world, decide early whether abandoned claims may be taken.
• Write your rules in the server description and your Discord, not only in the config.

Early Access, Updates and a Quiet Build

ATLAS is still listed as Early Access on Steam. The most recent news posts are Patch 560.3 on 30 May 2023, Devkit Update 560 on 21 June 2023 and a Season 13 wipe announcement for the official servers a day later. Since then the build has not changed, which makes life on a private server predictable: no update can break your grid overnight.

Run Steam Update in the panel after any reinstall, so every cell is on the same build. Mixed builds across cells are one of the few ways a quiet game can still trip you up.

Backups for a World of Many Cells

Every cell keeps its own save, so back up the world as a set. The Backup Manager takes a snapshot of a cell whenever you ask, Scheduled Tasks can do it nightly for all of them, and our offsite copies cover the last 7 days. When you restore, restore every cell to the same point in time, or a ship that sailed between cells may end up in two places or none.

What to Compare Before You Rent an ATLAS Server

ATLAS is sold differently from most games. These are the questions that save surprises.

1. Price per cellCheck whether a price covers one cell or several, and what each extra cell costs.
2. RAM per cellMemory is set per cell. A cheap cell without enough RAM stutters when your fleet docks.
3. Custom grid supportMake sure you can upload ServerGrid files yourself through SFTP.
4. Help linking cellsA multi-cell world needs Redis and matching settings. Ask how the host helps with it.
5. All cells in one placeEvery cell should sit in the same location for smooth crossings. Check the location list.
6. Backups you can restoreLook for snapshots you can restore yourself, on every cell, plus offsite copies.
7. Billing termsCompare monthly with 3, 6 and 12 month prices, and check for setup fees.

ATLAS Server Glossary

Cell

One square of the ATLAS ocean, run as its own server.

Grid

The layout of every cell in a world and how they join up.

ServerGridEditor

Grapeshot's official tool for designing a grid and its islands.

ServerGrid.json

The file the editor exports, describing the grid for the servers.

Redis

The database that lets several cells share players, ships and companies.

SeamlessIP

The public address a cell uses so players can sail into it from the next one.

Home server

A cell where players are allowed to spawn.

Freeport

A spawn island for new players, placed in the grid editor.

Claim flag

A marker that claims land for a player or company.

Master and slave server

Our order form's names for the first cell and each extra cell of a world.

ATLAS Server Help and Next Steps

Pages that help you plan and run your world.

• ServerGridEditor wiki, Grapeshot GamesGrid design, Redis and launch options from the developer.
• ATLAS store group on our order formMaster, extra and ready-made multi-cell servers.
• ATLAS on Steam
• Gaming Deluxe control panelWhat the panel does and how to log in.
• Our server locations
• Contact support24/7 help with cells, grids and backups.