Hello
Shadar.
That is a very good question but just like Phocian said, the answer is not very simple, so please bear with me.
There are a lot of factors that affect resource usage for StarMade, besides player count. Some of the most frequent are (in no particular order) world size, ship size and number, planet size, max speed allowed, complex logic, number and output of factories and large builds.
StarMade works with chunks. Each player on the server activates and loads to memory a certain amount of world chunks and everything that lies inside them, around him, while the rest of your world remains dormant. So in essence memory usage depends on both the active players and the world.
For example, if the planet size is set too large, when a player visits a planet, the server is using up more resources, than when a player is in a chunk with no planets. Under the same logic, a player with a huge ship full of turrets, will use more resources than another player in a moderate sized ship.
As you can understand, more players=more active chunks=more resources. In a fully grown world, each player will be using on average more resources per chunk than in a new world.
Providing realistic RAM recommendations is almost impossible, due to so many factors involved. Especially with StarMade, being in alpha, and with features still being added, removed and tweaked constantly, such recommendations are almost impossible. Additionally the server overhead should be taken into consideration.
Resource needs vary from server to server even with the same number of players online. Some owners choose moderate settings in their server.conf (such as planet sizes, max speed, factory production, logic complexity), set restrictions on ship size and other complexities that are monitored by moderators and so on. Other choose to not bother with such micro-management and just throw more resources into their servers.
What we chose is to provide flexible plans so you can adjust your plan to your specific server needs. You get customisable player slots as well as easy and instant plan upgrades and downgrades. When you need more resources you can instantly upgrade your plan. When you downgrade your plan, you get pro-rated credit for the remainder of your billing period. This way you can truly make a plan that suits your server at any point of its life, while not overpaying per slot when your server is just starting out.
As a rule of thumb, we
suggest a minimum of 1GB for StarMade servers and
recommend 2GB. However keep in mind that we've had clients on 1GB or even 512MB servers for months with no issues and also clients on 8GB plans.
If you have any more questions, we'll be happy to answer them, either here, or through a
ticket and
live chat on our
website.
P.S. Thank you
Phocian for your vote of confidence. Your reply was right to the point. Always happy having clients willing to help the StarMade community. Hope you are having a ton of fun with your server!
