Create a Minecraft Network: Velocity Proxy With Multiple Servers

What is a Minecraft network at RespawnHost?

A network is a Velocity proxy with several Minecraft servers behind it, which you create and remove under “Networks” in the panel. Your players connect to a single address and move between lobby, survival, creative or minigame rounds in game, without reconnecting the client. You pick a blueprint when creating it, and the panel handles the rest: install the proxy, configure forwarding, install plugins, start the first servers.

The difference to a single server: you no longer manage one server, you manage a group of them. New worlds come from templates with one click, and round-based servers clean themselves up after the match.

Three terms you need to know

Term	What it is	How many
Proxy	The Velocity server your players connect to. It knows every server behind it and passes players through.	exactly 1 per network
Template	The blueprint for a server: software, version, RAM package, lifetime. A template never runs, it only describes.	as many as you like
Instance	A real Minecraft server created from a template. It is named prefix-1, prefix-2 and so on automatically.	up to 20 per network

Every instance is a full game server with its own console, file manager, backups and metrics. That is why you also find the proxy and its instances in your regular game server list, carrying the network name in their alias, such as My Network — Proxy and My Network — lobby-1.

Creating a network: the four inputs

Under Networks in the panel, click “Create network”. The dialog asks for four things:

1. Name (at least three characters). It shows up in the panel and in the server aliases.
2. Blueprint: decides which templates are created and which of them start right away.
3. Location: Germany (Frankfurt am Main), US West (Salt Lake City), US East (Charlotte) or India (Noida). All servers of a network live in the same location, and instances prefer the node your proxy runs on.
4. Proxy package: the smallest package with 2 GB RAM is preselected. Velocity only forwards packets and never loads a world, so it rarely needs more.

The four blueprints compared

Blueprint	Templates created	Starts right away	RAM running	Plugins
Lobby only	Lobby	1 server	4 GB	8
SMP network	Lobby, Survival	2 servers	12 GB	19
Minigame network	Lobby, BedWars, SkyWars	1 server	4 GB	12
Creative network	Lobby, Creative	2 servers	8 GB	15

In the minigame network the round templates deliberately do not start: BedWars and SkyWars are meant to appear per match and disappear afterwards. The lobby runs continuously, because without a reachable target the proxy turns every player away.

What happens automatically after the click

A background job checks every minute what is still missing and works through the chain:

Step	What happens	Duration
1. Rent the proxy	The Velocity server is created and installed	usually 1 to 2 minutes
2. Configure the proxy	velocity.toml and the forwarding secret are written, proxy plugins installed. The network then shows Ready	about a minute
3. Create instances	Blueprint templates meant to start get their instance	1 to 2 minutes per server
4. Configure instances	Forwarding, online-mode=false and the performance tuning are written	seconds
5. Install plugins	Keeps running in the background while the server is already good to go	a few minutes
6. Start	Permanent instances boot, then the proxy. An instance is registered at the proxy only once it really listens	about a minute

An SMP network is up in roughly five to ten minutes. While setup is running the create buttons stay locked, so no half-configured instance gets in the way of the proxy sync.

The board: how you operate your network

The detail view shows your network as a map. The proxy sits on the left, instances to its right, connected by lines. You can drag the nodes around (positions are saved), zoom with the mouse wheel, and bring everything back into view with “Fit to view”.

• Click a node: opens the side panel with state, RAM, address, player count and whether the instance is registered at the proxy.
• Open server: jumps from the side panel into the familiar server view with console, file manager, backups and settings.
• Start, restart, stop the proxy: the buttons above the board.
• Start, stop, delete an instance: in that instance’s side panel.

Instance states mean:

State	What is going on
Provisioning	The server is being created and installed
Configuring	Forwarding and tuning are being written
Ready	Fully set up but switched off. Costs nothing
Running	Online and registered at the proxy
Draining	Being removed from the proxy config before it stops
Releasing	Being deleted
Failed	Setup did not work, the message is in the side panel

Templates: permanent or per round

You create a template with “Create template”, either from the ready-made list or entirely yourself. The ready-made ones come with sensible values that you can change at any time:

Template	Role	RAM	Idle shutdown	Max lifetime
Lobby	permanent	4 GB	off	none
Survival	permanent	8 GB	off	none
Resource world	permanent	8 GB	off	none
SkyBlock	permanent	8 GB	off	none
Creative	permanent	4 GB	off	none
BedWars	per round	4 GB	5 minutes	2 hours
SkyWars	per round	4 GB	5 minutes	1 hour
Minigame arena	per round	4 GB	5 minutes	2 hours
Event	per round	8 GB	30 minutes	12 hours

The difference sits in the Keep data switch:

• Permanent: stopping keeps the instance and its world. Right for lobby, survival, SkyBlock and creative.
• Ephemeral: the instance is deleted after the round and the world is gone with it. Right for minigame rounds that start fresh every time anyway.

Idle shutdown and max lifetime are your two safety nets against forgotten servers. An instance without players is shut down after the configured idle time, and at the latest when the max lifetime is reached, in case your round end never gets reported. Permanent templates only have their container stopped, ephemeral ones are deleted. Idle shutdown can be set between 1 and 60 minutes, 0 turns it off.

A template’s prefix becomes the name at the proxy: bedwars turns into bedwars-1, bedwars-2 and so on, and those are the names your players use with /server bedwars-2. As long as instances of that template are running, the prefix can no longer be changed.

Which server software works, which does not

As a backend the panel allows Paper, Purpur and Folia only. That is a security boundary rather than a convenience list: behind a proxy every server runs with online-mode=false and the proxy handles the Mojang check. Velocity’s modern forwarding secures that, and Paper supports it natively from 1.14 onwards. Vanilla and Fabric do not bring it, so such a server would sit online with authentication disabled and anyone could log in under any name, operators included. Try it anyway and the panel answers with “This server software does not support Velocity forwarding”.

The proxy itself always runs Velocity, in the latest stable version. The panel picks it for you.

Plugins we install automatically

All plugins come from Modrinth, matching the Minecraft version of your instance. Anything that does not exist for your version yet is listed in the panel as “These plugins could not be installed”, and you can add it later from the marketplace.

Where	Plugins	What for
Proxy	LuckPerms, Sonar, SignedVelocity, Velocitab, MiniMOTD	permissions, bot protection, chat signatures, shared tab list, server list entry
Every backend	LuckPerms, PlaceholderAPI, CoreProtect, Chunky, GrimAC	permissions, placeholders, block logging, chunk pregeneration, cheat protection
Survival and SkyBlock on top	WorldEdit, WorldGuard, GriefPrevention, HuskHomes, Insights, Multiverse-Core	building tools, regions, claim protection, homes, entity monitoring, multiple worlds
Lobby	LuckPerms, PlaceholderAPI, WorldEdit	deliberately light, a hub needs neither claims nor block logging
Round servers	LuckPerms, PlaceholderAPI	every plugin costs startup time, which a waiting round cannot spare

Sonar on the proxy is not a bonus but standard equipment: an open Minecraft proxy without bot protection is the first thing any scanner finds.

What does a network cost?

Proxy and instances are created as regular pay-per-use servers: billed by the second while they run, and 0.00 € while stopped. There is no network surcharge, the hourly prices are the same as for a single server.

Package	Price per hour	Running non-stop per month
2 GB	0.0166 €	11.97 €
4 GB	0.0296 €	21.32 €
8 GB	0.0575 €	41.40 €
12 GB	0.0845 €	60.86 €

An SMP network made of proxy (2 GB), lobby (4 GB) and survival (8 GB) therefore costs around 74.69 € per month running non-stop. A BedWars round on 4 GB that lasts two hours costs 0.06 €.

To start a server you need credit for at least four hours of runtime. Instances do not count against your regular server limit or your pay-per-use slot limit; their limit is the 20 instances per network.

Limits and rules

• 20 instances per network, the proxy not included.
• One location per network. Proxy and instances sit close together on purpose, because every packet a player sends travels between them.
• velocity.toml and [forced-hosts] belong to the panel. Both are rewritten on every sync, so your own entries there are lost. Everything else on the proxy, plugins and their configuration included, stays untouched.
• Do not hand out the instance addresses. Every server technically has its own subdomain, but connecting directly bypasses the proxy, permissions, bot protection and tab list. Only the proxy address is public.
• During setup you cannot create new instances.
• Deleting a network removes the proxy and all instances for good. Back up whatever matters to you first.

Frequently asked questions

Question: Do I need BungeeCord experience?

No. Velocity is the modern successor, and the error-prone part, meaning forwarding, the shared secret and the server list, is written by the panel. World, permissions and rules stay with you.

Question: How do players move between servers?

With /server. Without an argument Velocity shows the available servers, /server survival-1 connects directly. The command is granted to all players by default.

Question: Can I use my own domain like play.myserver.com?

Yes. The proxy is a normal server, so you connect your domain in its settings as usual. Because Minecraft supports SRV records, your players then connect without a port. The steps are in the guide Custom domain for your Minecraft server.

Question: What does an instance cost while it just sits there ready?

Nothing. Only runtime is billed. That is why you can prepare templates and instances for an event in advance and start them in the evening.

Question: Can I put modpacks or Forge servers into a network?

No. Only Paper, Purpur and Folia run behind the proxy, because only they handle modern forwarding safely. For modpacks use a separate server outside the network, see Installing Minecraft mods.

Question: Will my instances be archived automatically when they sit idle?

No. Network instances are excluded from the automatic archiving of inactive servers. The proxy, on the other hand, is a regular server and treated like one.

Question: How many players can such a network handle?

That depends on the backends, not on the proxy. Velocity handles several hundred players on 2 GB because it never loads a world. How much RAM your game servers need is covered in How much RAM does a Minecraft server need?.

What comes next

A freshly created network is technically up but not playable yet: admin permissions, your own world, the MOTD and claim protection are still missing. The panel checklist lists exactly those steps, and the guide Setting up a Minecraft network works through them with every command and file path.

Your own Minecraft server starts at 4.50 € per month: rent a Minecraft server.