Getting Started with Your Aska Dedicated Server

Getting Started with Your Aska Dedicated Server

So you've picked up Aska and you want your world running 24/7 instead of only when the host is online. Good call. I've set up a few of these for co-op groups now and once you know where the quirks live, the whole thing takes about ten minutes from checkout to a village full of villagers.

Aska has been in Early Access since June 2024, and Sand Sailor Studio added proper dedicated server support with the Server & Road update in November 2024. Before that, everyone was tethered to a host's session. With a real server, your villagers keep existing, your progress is safe, and nobody has to stay up late "just to keep the world alive".

Quick heads-up before we dig in: the Aska dedicated server is Windows-only. There's no Linux depot, so every path in this guide is a Windows one. Not an issue on LOW.MS – we handle the OS under the hood – but worth knowing if you're used to Linux game servers.

Ordering Your Server

Grab a plan from the Aska server hosting page. Pick your region at checkout (more on that below) and complete the order. Provisioning is automatic and usually done in a couple of minutes.

Honestly, the 4-player cap in Aska means RAM is barely a concern on this one. It's a game-level limit set by Sand Sailor Studio, not a hosting thing, so don't overthink the plan size.

Once it's provisioned you'll get your panel login at https://control.low.ms. That's where everything lives.

Finding Your Way Around the LOW.MS Control Panel

The LOW.MS Control Panel is TCAdmin under the hood. The sidebar is where all the useful stuff lives, and the items you'll actually touch for Aska are:

• Service Settings – your home screen. Start, stop, restart, see uptime.
• Configuration Files – edits the server config directly in the browser, no FTP needed.
• Web Console – live server output. Handy when you're waiting for it to finish booting.
• Cloud Backup and Cloud Restore – two separate sidebar items. One takes a snapshot, the other restores one. We also run automatic backups in the background, but a manual Cloud Backup before you mess with settings is never a bad idea.
• Current Activity & Stats – CPU, RAM and disk at a glance.

FTP is there too if you want it, but for a basic Aska setup you really don't need it.

The First-Boot Config

The main Aska config file is server properties.txt – note the space in the filename, this trips people up. On a LOW.MS server it lives at roughly C:\Gameservers\ASKA\config\server properties.txt, but you shouldn't need to touch it directly. Open Configuration Files in the panel and it's right there.

A handful of values matter on first boot:

display name : What your server shows up as in the in-game region browser. Make it something your mates will actually recognise.

password : Optional but recommended. Passwords are case-sensitive, which bites people more often than you'd think.

region : Sets which region bucket your server appears under in the in-game browser. Verified options include Europe, USA East, USA West, Asia and Australia, plus ten more covering South America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and so on – the full 15-region list is in the Aska server settings guide. Pick the one closest to the bulk of your players.

seed : Leave blank for a random world, or set a specific value if you want a reproducible map. I usually leave it random the first time and only lock it in if we find a seed we love.

mode : normal is the default experience. Switching to custom unlocks the extra knobs – invasion difficulty, monster density, day length. If you're planning a chill build-focused run, custom mode is where you turn raid events down.

Full reference for every field (including the custom-mode ones) is in the settings guide. No point duplicating it here.

The GSLT Step Everyone Forgets

Aska dedicated servers need a Steam Game Server Login Token. This is non-negotiable – the server simply won't appear online without one. The first time I booted a fresh Aska server I spent about twenty minutes wondering why no one could connect, and yep, turned out I hadn't set the GSLT yet.

To generate one:

1. Head to https://steamcommunity.com/dev/managegameservers and sign in.
2. Use App ID 1898300 (that's the Aska game App ID, not the dedicated server App ID 3246670 – GSLT uses the game one).
3. Give it a memo like "LOW.MS Aska" so future-you knows what it's for.
4. Click Create, copy the token, paste it into the GSLT field in Configuration Files, save, and restart the server.

Tokens are free. You can revoke and regenerate at any time.

Connecting

There's really only one way to join an Aska dedicated server: the in-game region browser. Aska doesn't expose a Valve query protocol and there's no direct-IP connect, so sharing an IP with your friends won't help – they won't have anywhere to paste it.

1. Launch Aska, hit Multiplayer.
2. Switch the region filter to match whatever you set in the config.
3. Find your server by its display name. Enter the password if you set one, and join.

If nothing shows up:

• Is the server actually running? Check Service Settings.
• Did you match the region? If your server is set to europe and your friend is browsing usa east, it's invisible.
• Did you set the GSLT and restart after saving? Without a valid token the server stays off the master list.
• Open the Web Console and wait for the server to finish starting – if you alt-tab to Aska too early, it'll look like the server doesn't exist yet.

Anything weirder than that, the Aska troubleshooting guide has more.

A Couple of Behaviours Worth Knowing

Aska has a setting called keep server world alive, and its default is false. That means the world pauses when no one's connected. I actually think this default is brilliant – it stops invasions and raid events firing into an empty server at 3 a.m., and your NPC villagers aren't burning through food while you sleep. If you want a true always-on world with events continuing without you, flip it to true. Most co-op groups I've helped leave it off.

Autosaves happen on a timer. You can also trigger a manual save any time, and Cloud Backup gives you a point-in-time snapshot you can Cloud Restore from if something goes sideways.

First Session Tips

Nothing ground-breaking, but a few things that made our first run smoother:

• Pick a spawn with fresh water, trees and flattish ground nearby. You'll be here a while.
• Summon villagers early with the Eye of Odin and assign them to gathering – they're the whole point of the game's economy loop.
• Split jobs across the group. One person on the build, one on scouting, one on food. The 4-player cap is tight, every role matters.
• Get walls up before the first night. Not everything in the woods is friendly.

For preset configs aimed at different play styles (chill building, harder survival, bigger raid events) have a look at the best Aska server settings for co-op. And if your villagers are doing odd things or you want to tune their behaviour, the NPC villager management guide is worth a read.

If you're still comparing hosts or weighing up DIY vs managed, how to host an Aska dedicated server covers that in more depth.

That's the short version. Anything that doesn't behave the way you expect, open a ticket – our support team is on 24/7 and we get asked about Aska a lot, so odds are we've seen whatever it is before.