Honestly: Schedule I has no official dedicated server
This belongs up front: TVGS ships Schedule I without an official dedicated server. Out of the box multiplayer runs through Steam lobbies – one player hosts the world, the others join, and the cap is four players. When the host goes offline, the evening is over for everyone.
Continuous operation therefore runs through the DedicatedServerMod by ifBars: it turns the game into a standalone, headless server and raises the player count beyond the four vanilla slots – up to 20 with us. The project is established, open source and actively maintained – but it does not come from the game's developer TVGS.
What that means in practice: all players need compatible mod versions, and after major Schedule I updates it can take several days for the mods to catch up. During that time server operation can be limited. We keep the versions as current as possible, but we can't guarantee update speed for third-party software. If that feels too uncertain, stick with normal four-player co-op – that is a perfectly legitimate decision.
What you should know about the mods
Two things matter before you start. First: all players must have the same, mutually compatible mod versions installed. A player with an outdated version simply won't get onto the server – that's the most common cause of connection problems.
Second: Schedule I is in Early Access and receives regular updates. Every major update can temporarily break the server mod until the authors catch up. We therefore strongly recommend taking a backup before every update – one click with us, and it can save many hours of building work.
If you can live with that, you get an experience the base game doesn't offer. If you need maximum reliability, the official four-player co-op serves you better – we'd rather say that beforehand than afterwards.
Software & credits: DedicatedServerMod by ifBars
Our Schedule I servers run on S1DedicatedServers / DedicatedServerMod by ifBars – an open-source project licensed under GPL-3.0. Without that work there would be no permanently running Schedule I servers at all, which is why the credit belongs up top and not in the small print.
Source code and releases live at github.com/ifBars/S1DedicatedServers, the official documentation at docs.s1servers.com. Our setup is based on the project's Docker container; we keep the build current with the public releases, and the version running on your server is shown in the panel.
We asked ifBars before launching rather than just going ahead – our use is explicitly permitted and he supports us with setup questions. Beyond that we work together through a creator code: enter the code Bars when topping up and you get 30 % extra credit, with ifBars receiving a share of those top-ups. That way part of what you spend here flows back into developing the mod.
We disclose this arrangement as the project's hosting guidelines require. What we explicitly are not: an official, exclusive or project-recommended provider. Questions about the mod itself are answered better by the linked documentation than by us – questions about your server belong with us.
