Strict-JSON Server Workshop & Cave Threat Math · 8-Player Survival Horror · Survival Horror / Open World Crafting
One-stop Sons of the Forest toolkit: dedicatedserver.cfg generator and JSON linter (a .cfg file whose contents are strict JSON), a 22-setting custom difficulty balancer, the three-UDP-port matrix and a troubleshooting decision tree. Player side: threat index, cave loadout, build resource budget, Kelvin throughput, zipline geometry, season progression and 8-player squad planning.
Type cheatstick then press F1 — no input box appears. Covers godmode / invisible / addallitems / settimeofday / season / killradius / aidisable / addcharacter
Slope, rope length, anchor count and materials from span and rise — plus the direct line-of-sight requirement
The five enemy settings stack multiplicatively — all-High is an order of magnitude worse than one High. Weighted into surface and cave indices
Totals logs, sticks, rocks, rope, cloth and tape — and flags what Kelvin cannot gather for you
Kelvin never tires but works serially — one job at a time, and a new order cancels the current one
Kelvin handles gathering and building, Virginia fights and dual-wields — and one hit resets her trust to zero
Work out when winter hits — and why IdleDayCycleSpeed=0 means you never wake up in winter
There is no resupply inside caves — per-person quantities derived from threat tier and party size
Markers are limited — rank bunkers, caves, 3D printers and weapons by priority (we do not duplicate a static coordinate database)
Hard cap 8 — split across gathering / building / exploring / combat / logistics and flag risky setups like explorers with no fighters
A .cfg file whose contents are strict JSON. Five sections plus four presets, with key/nesting/type/logic validation before output
All 22 CustomGameModeSettings in one place, with pre-flight checks on the two silent-failure preconditions (GameMode=Custom, SaveMode=New)
Paste your config and catch syntax errors, misspelled keys, wrong nesting, type violations and logic conflicts in one pass
What breaks without each of UDP 8766 / 27016 / 9700, plus netsh / ufw / iptables / firewalld commands
Bisect by direct-connect / listed / world-intact, including the backtick direct-connect trick and the no-RCON caveat
Save slots 1-5 are separate worlds, not save points for one world. Generates a backup script and crontab, and warns to stop the server first
No tick-rate knob — only three levers: ActiveTargetFramerate (min 10), IdleTargetFramerate and IdleDayCycleSpeed
Pull anonymously with appid 2465200; after a game patch you must re-run app_update or version mismatch blocks everyone
| Port | Protocol | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| 8766 | UDP | Game port (GamePort) — nobody can connect without it |
| 27016 | UDP | Query port (QueryPort) — without it direct connect works but the server is never listed |
| 9700 | UDP | World blob-sync port (BlobSyncPort) — without it you get in but buildings/terrain are missing, often mistaken for save corruption |
SteamCMD appid 2465200
sudo useradd -m -s /bin/bash steam
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y steamcmd lib32gcc-s1
sudo -u steam -i \
/usr/games/steamcmd +force_install_dir /opt/gameserver \
+login anonymous +app_update 2465200 validate +quithttps://xgamingserver.com/docs/sons-of-the-forest/server-config
dedicatedserver.cfg%APPDATA%/../LocalLow/Endnight/SonsOfTheForestDS/dedicatedserver.cfgownerswhitelist.txtSaves/CRITICAL: dedicatedserver.cfg has a .cfg extension but contains strict JSON — one trailing comma makes the server refuse to start with "configuration failed to parse". The two namespaces are NOT interchangeable: GameSettings uses bare prefixes (Gameplay.TreeRegrowth / Structure.Damage) while CustomGameModeSettings uses GameSetting.<ns>.<key> (22 settings). Custom difficulty has two silent-failure preconditions: GameMode must be Custom AND SaveMode must be New — difficulty is locked at world creation, so Continue makes your edits no-ops on an existing save. All three UDP ports matter; a missing 9700 BlobSyncPort means players join but see missing buildings and terrain. There is no official RCON — do not invent RconPort fields. ownerswhitelist.txt is the owner/admin list (one SteamID64 per line), not a player allowlist, and requires a restart; use Password for private access (40 chars max, case-sensitive). MaxPlayers is hard-capped at 8 (higher values are silently ignored). The console needs GameSetting.Multiplayer.Cheats enabled; in game type cheatstick (no input box appears) then press F1. No official mod support (no Workshop, no -mods). Linux needs Proton/Wine; on Windows use -userdatapath to relocate data.