Brink (PC) Dedicated Server Guide

[Zuthus]

Forward Your Ports

 

You need to forward these three ports to correctly setup Brink Dedicated Server.

 

TCP/UDP 27015, 27016, 8766.

 

Don’t forget to forward 8766, because the server authenticates with Steam via this port.

 

Optimizing Brink Server Machine

 

 

Brink uses a scaling jobs system that can run multiple threads if multiple cores are available on the server. If you are to host the server on multi-core machine, don’t leave this option to unlimited or Brink may end up loading the CPU.

 

You can control the value using the command line tweak ‘exec_maxThreads’. This cvar will have to be set on the command line as ‘+set exec_maxThreads ‘ to limit the number of instances of Brink Servers running on your machine.

 

Setup Brink Dedicated Server

 

Follow the simple instructions in this section to setup and launch your very own Brink Dedicated Server.

 

Dedicated Server .bat Files

The default Brink dedicated server comes with three .bat files that can be used to launch the game:

 

Brink_ded1.bat

Brink_ded2.bat

Brink_ded3.bat

 

These .bat files have simple server configuration settings, like server name, server port and server port master. You can use .bat files as an example to customize and create your own custom server configuration file to launch your server.

 

Or, you can edit the si_name cvar in one of the .bat files, set the three port cvars to match the port forwarding rules you setup in your Firewall, save and execute the .bat file to launch your Brink Dedicated Server.

 

Dedicated Server Console

Once you run the .bat file, you would be presented with Brink Dedicated Server Console.

 

You can enter and execute server commands from this dedicated server console. It also comes with a built-in help option, so you don’t have to type the exact command, type a word and pressing tab will show you all the available suggestions or console commands available for that word.

 

Execute existing config file and launch the server. To know all the available game modes and settings in Brink Multiplayer check our Brink Multiplayer Guide.

 

By default Brink offers following config rules files which can be found in the ‘\base folder’. You can execute any of these or customize one to meet your needs and execute it in the Brink Server Console to launch the Dedicated Server.

 

server_campaign_resistance_coop.cfg

server_campaign_security_coop.cfg

server_challenge_coop2.cfg

server_challenge_coop3.cfg

server_challenge_coop4.cfg

server_objective_advanced_vs.cfg

server_objective_competition_vs.cfg

server_objective_oldskool_vs.cfg

server_objective_standard_vs.cfg (Default)

server_stopwatch_advanced_vs.cfg

server_stopwatch_competition_vs.cfg

server_stopwatch_oldskool_vs.cfg

server_stopwatch_standard_vs.cfg

 

ou can also create your own config file for your server or add rules to the game from the console but it is recommended that you start with any of these pre-defined config rules files.

 

For starters, execute the default config file by typing this in console:

Exec server_objective_standard_vs.cfg

Hit enter to apply the config.

 

Launch Brink Dedicated Server

Now that you have applied the game settings to your server, it’s time to launch this baby. Type spawnServer in console alongwith the name of the map you want to run it.

spawnServer mp/aquarium.entities

 

Players will be able to connect to the server, once the server has finished loading the map.

 

Setup Brink RCON

 

It is possible to setup remote console for Brink Dedicated Server which will allow admins to perform actions by remotely accessing their servers. But to enable RCON, you need to setup Brink Dedicated Server like this:

The server has to set a password using

 

net_serverRemoteConsolePassword

 

The client needs to set the address of the server

 

net_clientRemoteConsoleAddress

 

The client needs to enter the password set on the server using

 

net_clientRemoteConsolePassword

 

 

Enable/Disable Server Hijacking

 

Brink allows players to play Co op challenges and Campaign online on dedicated servers but players can only use those dedicated servers that are empty and have ServerHijacking enabled. You can set this option using ‘net_allowServerHijacking 1′. 1 to enable serverhijacking and 0 to disable it but even when set to enable, server needs to be empty before it can be used for campaign or co op modes.

 

Map Rotations

 

You can setup map rotations for stopwatch and objective game modes using one of the following ways.

 

Fixed Rotation or Allow Voting For Maps

 

g_mapRotationFixed – set a fixed map rotation

g_mapRotationVote – restrict the maps players may vote on at match end.

 

Both of these cvars are set using the following format:

 

g_mapRotationFixed “mp/, mp/, mp/“

 

 

Example

 

g_mapRotationFixed “mp/ccity, mp/aquarium, mp/refuel”

 

If neither of these cvars is set then the game mode’s defaults rules for map rotation will be used.

 

For more information about map rotations you can check the server_map_rotation_examples.cfg in the \base folder of the dedicated server.

 

Private Server – Password Protection

 

There are two cvars you can use to setup a private server or password protected server. You can either add these in console or use them in your config file.

 

si_needpass – Set to 1 if you want set the password on the server.

g_password – sets the actual password string.

 

 

How to Create Custom Configs

 

Keep following rules in mind when creating your own config. The following cvars should always be included:

 

si_name “” – Your server’s name

si_rules – Set the game mode

si_playMode – Set the type of game

si_onlineMode 3 – Ensures the game is multiplayer

 

Map Names

 

In Brink you can enter the map name in console using three different ways.

 

mp/aquarium

mp/aquarium.entities

maps/mp/aquarium.entities

 

When refereeing to maps in .bat or .cfg files the standard format of mp/mapname will always work, therefore the following list should be considered the list of map names to be used:

 

mp/aquarium

mp/ccity

mp/reactor

mp/refuel

mp/resort

mp/sectow

mp/shipyard

mp/terminal

 

 

Restrict Who Can Join Brink Server – Rank Restrictions

 

It’s possible to restrict who can join a game of Brink by the character’s rank, so that only players of the same rank or lower can join the session.

 

Brink has five player ranks, the cvar si_maxRank controls the rank of the server that the player ranks are compared against, so:

 

si_maxRank 0 = Rank 1 players only

si_maxRank 1 = Rank 1 and 2 players only

si_maxRank 2 = Rank 1, 2 and 3 players only

si_maxRank 3 = Rank 1, 2, 3 and 4 players only

si_maxRank 4 = All player ranks can join

 

Brink Dedicated Server – Useful Console Commands List

 

This is a list of other useful console commands and cvars that a server admin may wish to use:

Setting Game Modes

 

si_rules sdGameRulesStopWatch

si_rules sdGameRulesObjective

si_rules sdGameRulesChallenge

si_rules sdGameRulesCampaign

 

Setting Play Mode

 

si_playmode 0 = solo

si_playmode 1 = Co-op

si_playmode 2 = versus

 

Setting the map

 

spawnServer mp/aquarium.entities

spawnServer mp/ccity.entities

spawnServer mp/reactor.entities

spawnServer mp/refuel.entities

spawnServer mp/resort.entities

spawnServer mp/sectow.entities

spawnServer mp/shipyard.entities

spawnServer mp/terminal.entities

spawnServer sp/challenge_01.entities

spawnServer.sp/challenge_03.entities

spawnServer.sp/challenge_05.entities

spawnServer.sp/challenge_06.entities

 

Setting up RCON

 

net_serverRemoteConsolePassword

net_clientRemoteConsoleAddress

net_clientRemoteConsolePassword

 

Admin commands

 

admin startMatch – Will take a match out of warm-up.

admin kick – Kicks a user from the server.

admin kickAllBots – Kicks all AI bots from the server.

admin restartMap – Restarts the current map.

 

Server Settings

 

si_teamDamage – Friendly fire on/off.

si_name – Set the server name.

si_maxPlayers – Set the server size.

si_minPlayers – Number of players required to start a match.

si_spectators – Enable/disable spectating.

si_timelimit – Change the time limit.

si_teamForceBalance – Set if players can only join the smaller size team.

si_disableVoting – Disables votes.

si_botDifficulty – Changes bot difficulty.

si_readyPercent – Percentage of players that need to ready up to start a match.

si_warmupSpawn – Allows players to spawn and play during warm-up period.

si_enemyTintEnabled – Enables/disables rim lighting tints on enemies.

 

Server Advertisement

You can use following cvars to advertise on your server.

 

si_adminName

si_email

si_irc

si_motd_1

si_motd_2

si_motd_3

si_motd_4

si_website

si_serverURL