TheSmelter Premium Hosting | Stellar Performance | DDR4/SSD | Ram Based | StarMade Dock Discount

TheSmelter · Dec 9, 2014

A LITTLE ABOUT US

TheSmelter is a fast growing game hosting company. It started in the early 2000’s by industry professionals as a high quality web hosting provider. Since early 2012 we shifted our focus and in 2013 we started offering game hosting services as TheSmelter.
We have been hosting StarMade servers since September 2013.
Our goal is to achieve remarkable customer satisfaction and outstanding customer support is our No1 priority.
Our ever expanding team comprises of amazingly cool people from the U.S.A., Canada and E.U. who will make sure that your hosting experience is nothing but phenomenal.

OUR INFRASTRUCTURE

We want you to have a fantastic experience with your server. To ensure this, we use only the latest and best quality enterprise grade hardware and incredible world-class datacenters, so that nothing gets in the way of your gaming.
All of our servers are hosted on extremely secure facilities with state-of-the-art, vastly redundant systems. Our network delivers stunning performance bandwidth with multiple direct connections to global Tier1 carriers. Featuring an amazing 60+ Gbps capacity and 10GigE transit as well as 100% 10 Gigabit Ethernet and DDoS mitigation facilities, our network will never let you down, regardless of your choice of location.
This powerhouse would be nothing without a way to harness it. We use the powerful Multicraft panel to allow you full control of your server and unrestricted access to your files. We have developed our own in-house built system to allow for one-click installation, updating and world resetting, thus making managing your server incredibly simple and easy.
We also use a large array of custom developed, along with commercially available specialised tools, to help us monitor and manage our servers so we can be able to provide with amazing stability and performance.
This is why you will love hosting your server with TheSmelter.

LOCATIONS

STARMADE HOSTING FEATURES

Cutting Edge Hardware
All our servers feature brand new Haswell-E Enterprise Grade Intel Xeon CPUs, lightning fast DDR4 ECC memory, and are fully SSD based, to provide you with unsurpassed performance.

Unrivaled Networks
Our network delivers stunning performance bandwidth with multiple direct connections to global Tier1 carriers, an amazing 60+ Gbps capacity and 10GigE transit as well as 100% 10-Gigabit Ethernet and DDoS protection facilities.

Awesome Support
Helping you is our job and we're proud of our job. All you have to do is use our ticket support system or our live help chat. Whatever the question might be, we'll make sure it's answered quickly. Whatever the issue might be, we'll help you get it fixed, fast and for good.

Instant Setup
Nobody wants to wait for a new game. As soon as your order is placed and your payment is received,our system sets up your server and sends all the necessary info to your e-mail. Get your server up and running in minutes.

Full FTP Access
Manage every single file on your server with ease. Using our built in FTP panel or your favourite FTP client you can easily upload and download files and modify any config files.

Always Updated
Our systems are updated daily. You will always find the latest StarMade version on our installer. So when you want to, you can update your server in a few simple steps.

No Player Cap
Whether you want your server to have dozens of players or just a couple of friends, you can adjust the maximum number of players on your server at any time. Player caps are only determined by the nature of your server, not by presets.

Easy Upgrade and Downgrade
Servers need to grow as their player base grows. With a few clicks in your billing account you can upgrade your server to accommodate your new players at anytime. And if you need to downgrade, we'll credit the remaining paid time to your account.

No Hidden Fees - No Contracts
Transparency is important to us. There are no setup fees, no support fees, no late fees, no cancellation fees or any kind of hidden fees whatsoever. Servers are billed on a month to month basis and can be cancelled at anytime with no penalties.

48hr Trial Servers
Still not convinced? Get a completely free 48 hour trial server to check the performance and latency and get accustomed to our systems first hand.

PLAN PRICING

Prices are per GB of RAM per month

DEDICATED SERVERS

Our dedicated servers are built for absolute gaming. We use only the best enterprise grade hardware combined with our stunning network infrastructure to give you the performance your StarMade community deserves.
Our dedicated servers come in two distinct variations. Bare Bones and Fusion Servers
Good old bare-bones dedicated servers give you full root control over your server, allowing you to manage your server just the way you like it.
Fusion Servers are a breakthrough in dedicated hosting, giving you the best of two worlds. They come attached to our existing infrastructure, letting you run your own dedicated StarMade server the same easy way you would run any other shared StarMade server. This way you get all the tremendous performance of a dedicated server and none of the hassles of Linux, all with the ease of use of the awesome Multicraft control panel. They even give you access to our amazing support system.

VOICE SERVERS

9 locations globally. Prices starting at

GET IN TOUCH

You can also open a ticket or talk to us on live chat.

PROMOTIONS

Use the promo code SMF15 during your checkout for a 15% discount off your first month.

Qazwsxlion · Dec 10, 2014

Might buy a server. Seems good!

Lidren · Jan 7, 2015

Been running stable and secure with The Smelter for over a year. I've never waited more than a few hours for a support response, and someone on their team always has the answer I need. Even their "non-dedicated" servers have extreme performance, hosting 20+ reliably at 2-6 ram. Most Starmade configs are accessible through a control panel as well as manually through ftp, and they intend on adding the rest of the custom config files as well.

Bottom line, I won't ever be moving my server. Anyone with more questions about my experiences with them or their system can ask me freely.

Edit: almost forgot, I run a team speak server and a separate test server with them too.

TheSmelter · Feb 1, 2015

0.188 is here and so is our new update procedure. Much simpler than before, you can now update your server and your world in a few clicks.

Feel free to contact us here, on twitter or through a ticket and live chat on our website for more information.

kibbets · Feb 5, 2015

Ive been with TheSmelter now for about a month and all i can say is that they have outstanding quality on their servers and support team
the few times ive ever had trouble the support team has been there with almost no deley making my problems go away i can recomend them to anyone whos thinking of renting a server.

warpgamer · Feb 9, 2015

Great host, correct prices, no issues whatsoever with stability, excellent support

TheSmelter · Feb 22, 2015

Starside's Blood And Steel StarMade Tournament Day 2, hosted by TheSmelter, is starting now!

16 teams with custom submitted ships are competing for the title.

Don't miss out. Watch it now live on Twitch!

gravypod · Mar 5, 2015

What are some more detailed specs of your hardware? Saying "DDR4" does not paint a good picture.

What sticks are you using? If you can't tell us that, tell us what clock speed the memory is and at what voltages.
What CPU do you use with it?
What mother board have you chosen?

Much of the early DDR4 hardware has been proven to be slower and more expensive than high end DDR3 predecessors.

linwe talion · Mar 5, 2015

nvm, looked up everything on the site

TheSmelter · Mar 6, 2015

gravypod said:
What are some more detailed specs of your hardware? Saying "DDR4" does not paint a good picture.

What sticks are you using? If you can't tell us that, tell us what clock speed the memory is and at what voltages.
What CPU do you use with it?
What mother board have you chosen?

Much of the early DDR4 hardware has been proven to be slower and more expensive than high end DDR3 predecessors.

I must admit that your questions strike me as a bit strange as they seem more relevant to desktop gaming PCs and not enterprise grade server hardware.

A quick glance at our post above, will show that we use Intel Xeon E5 CPUs (1620v3 and 1650v3 depending on the Tier).

These CPUs were released Q3'14 and they are hosted on Super Micro enterprise grade server chassis and motherboards with DDR4 ECC memory modules running at 2133MHz. Please note that this is server grade ECC memory, not desktop grade. All DDR4 ECC memory modules are designed to work at 1.2V.

This is cutting edge server hardware and certainly not desktop grade "early DDR4 hardware". I don't know what you are referring to when you say that DDR4 doesn't paint a good picture, but we've experienced nothing but amazing performance with this hardware which is miles ahead of any DDR3 hardware we've ever used, in our over two years' experience as a game hosting company.

If you have any other questions, we'll be happy to answer them, either here, or through a ticket and live chat on our website.

Magical_nut · Mar 20, 2015

I've been renting two servers with TheSmelter for a few months now, and I couldn't be happier with the quality of product they sell. My servers have been operating without interruption, and with very little lag with upward of ten people on the smallest server. Customer service is so much better than the competitors as well, and are able to answer nearly any question that I can throw at them without having delay. I highly recommend TheSmelter as your host if you wish to reply any range of gaming. The voice servers are also reasonable, so give it a go!

Menoetius · Mar 21, 2015

I have been nothing but extremely satisfied with TheSmelter. The hardware performs like it should, and the customer service is exemplary. We are using them as the foundation for Savage and have been nothing but satisfied. Got to say, actually had a long and not server related talk with Stella today, one of their reps, really good person. It is nice when the Host happen to be real people!

Harbinger_OF_Cthulhu · Apr 27, 2015

If interested in hosting a Starmade server I recommend shopping around. Find the host you think is best. Which I found out to be the Smelter. They have a great support team, their responsiveness is extremely fast and very friendly. They have experience hosting SM servers which allows for a better experience. They have FTP file access set up very accessibly which allows you to mod the game to your liking easily, (which is a big plus). So The Smelter is working out for my server, it probably could with yours too!

MadmickUK · May 6, 2015

I must say how awesome the people at The Smelter are, I am a 53 year old with very little tech knowledge, and some how they managed to talk me though getting my own Starmade server up and running. In particular Stella has the patience of a saint and supreme product knowledge. somehow she made made everything so easy to understand and it worked perfectly Thank You so very much.

Gargoylerex · Jun 3, 2015

I have rented many minecraft/starmade/7days todie servers from several different Server providers over the years... have to say that the Smelter folks are by far the most reliable, easy redneck can figure it out simple controls/access , and support staff...

Their price is a little above average but well worth it for the stable easy to use service they provide.

Rand_Al_Thorn · Jul 14, 2015

how are they with installing a wrapper for starmade server....ideally gtwrapper my current provider has been dragging there heals and saying there too busy to get to installing a wrapper for my server so im shopping around. (note: they cannot or will not use gtwrapper...there only offering Gravypods SMWrapper...if they get around to it)

TheSmelter · Jul 14, 2015

Rand_Al_Thorn said:
how are they with installing a wrapper for starmade server....ideally gtwrapper my current provider has been dragging there heals and saying there too busy to get to installing a wrapper for my server so im shopping around. (note: they cannot or will not use gtwrapper...there only offering Gravypods SMWrapper...if they get around to it)

Unfortunately wrappers, mods etc, are not supported while the game is in alpha. The changes with each release are simply too many at this point for us to be able to support third party additions. Once the game has been more or less complete, we will definitely look into this.

RandomEvent · Jul 25, 2015

Hi all,

I have been running a StarMade (SM) server through theSmelter for about 3 months now.
Genrally pleased but be aware you will likely need more and more resources as your server database grows.

TheSmelter do not sell player slots as such, but memory size. Upgrading memory is almost instanaaneous but of course increases your monthly costs.

Currently my server is requiring around 2.5 Gigs of memory (approx £14 a month) and I have around 10 people online on average. The players creep up to 20 sometimes, therefore it crashes occasionally from lack of memory to the Java OS running the game. TheSmelter will just tell you you need to purchase more memory (I just reset the server more often and delete pirate Mobs with the admin /despawn_all command).

Support is very good, although the replies feel a little "Pushy" at times but this could be down to the problem of feeling empathy from an email.

My main gripe is the interface.
They use Multicraft which is designed for MineCraft. Unfortunately a case of a round plug pushed into a square hole. You can see the gaps and it does not really quite fit.
This means that many things do not work in it. For example;

Player Lists (displays the odd person if you are lucky)
Remote Commands/Scheduling (often does not work and has Minecraft only builtins)
Server Setup (has options for Minecraft only items such as hell world)

However, the game update is easy and the interface has an FTP access screen. The FTP is essential to setting up various items hidden down in the StarMade files. A plus is also that some of the config files such as the server.cfg and Message file have their own screen without needing FTP. You might have to wait up to a day for the latest game update to be available through theSmelter. So sometimes best to wait a little to see if the latest update has been given a hotfix and it is available to update. You can see the current theSmelter versions here;
http://thesmelter.com/mods.php
Scroll to the very bottom for SM.

A backup and restore mechanisn is available for the game world but be careful as it does not save everything and you need to make sure any extras you might have added are there in the created zip file.

No mods seem to be allowed, a definate minus point.

I would like to add admins that can perform a server reset (a screen button in the multicraft interface), but I have to give them complete access to do such a simple task (the in game /shutdown command often hangs the server and so is not good). This something I currently am unwilling to do, as they would then have access to all files and commands. That's like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

Often it is mentioned that SM is alpha. I agree, but so what, it is just a set of game files sitting in server file and memory space. I feel that theSmelter is good, but does not go the full mile. A decent interface would be great but I suppose with a game with such a small client base this is a risky money propersition.

So, as much as I like them (I have just renewed another month).....
4/5 Stars from me.

TheSmelter · Jan 1, 2016

Shadar · Feb 1, 2016

I've been thinking about hosting a Starmade server and have been doing a little research. Problem is that I've never hosted a game server before, so this is all new to me. I see the pricing is laid out by GB per month, but am not sure Noe that factors in to the total monthly charge. Would someone mind telling me what their charge per month is, how much RAM they're using and what that equates to in number of players?