Killing Floor 2 listen server

[BlackMilk]

The last game had this option, this one does not. And as someone who's not tech savvy (or whatever the word is), I'm having trouble running a dedicated server.
I used the SteamCMD method to get a game started and it worked, but apparently the game was recently updated and I need to update my server.

I can't find command lines anywhere, so all of this info was wasted on me. Using the app_update command gives me a few lines of text which indicate failure. I tried just removing the server folder but starting over and trying to redownload it didn't work.

This thread is half question (to TWI I guess, but I doubt I'll get an answer, or at least not a satisfying one) and half desperate plea for help.

Why is there no (easy to find?) listen server option anymore?
And if this is what we have to work with, how does a tech noob like myself get the server to work?

Thank you for your time, fellow KF enthusiasts.

[Noordoosten]

use evolve or hamachi to make a listen server its waaaaaaay easier

[RAMBO]

This might help.
http://steamcommunity.com/app/232090/discussions/0/618460129740977382/

[ninja crouton]

They'll most likely add listen later on. But really the walkthrough they have should be doable by even tech-illiterate people

[Noordoosten]

Originally posted by ninja crouton:

They'll most likely add listen later on. But really the walkthrough they have should be doable by even tech-illiterate people

you ...... i see you .... everywhere on every forum the payday forum the gta 5 forum the kf2 forum YOU ARE EVERYWHERE WTF !?!?!?!?!!?

[ninja crouton]

Originally posted by  Notorious Bum Fiddler :

Originally posted by ninja crouton:

They'll most likely add listen later on. But really the walkthrough they have should be doable by even tech-illiterate people

you ...... i see you .... everywhere on every forum the payday forum the gta 5 forum the kf2 forum YOU ARE EVERYWHERE WTF !?!?!?!?!!?

I am the illuminati

[Delin Windsong]

I see ninja crouton every where too as well.

[ninja crouton]

It's mostly because I've done a really good job at not getting any work done in the past month or so

[BlackMilk]

I was hoping my entire post would be read by users before replying. Like I said before, I already tried updating and it didn't work. When I try connecting to my server the game informs me the server has not been updated and I should try playing elsewhere. I'll look through the guides again and see if I can find the command lines (and nowhere does it say where to find those?), but it doesn't seem to work right now.

Obviously I'll give it another go.

Originally posted by  Notorious Bum Fiddler :

use evolve or hamachi to make a listen server its waaaaaaay easier

I'll look into that as well, thanks.
Haven't used Hamachi in a long time! I prefer an online server, but I do like a private game with friends every now and then, so that's a good idea.

[Chalpupa]

I followed this guide and had no issues that weren't my fault:

http://wiki.tripwireinteractive.com/index.php?title=Dedicated_Server_%28Killing_Floor_2%29

I'll try my best to step through what I did in hopes it may help you.

Mind you, if I say anything that seems too detailed or self explanatory, I do not say it as to insult your intelligence, I only do so to be as clear as possible :)

Also, if this is done correctly you won't need Hamachi or Tunngle or anything like that for your friends to join. It will work by Steam Invites.

1) Since you seem to have already downloaded the SteamCMD tool, I'll ask you to navigate to the folder for which you are keeping it. I'll also ask that you delete any remnants of the KF2 Server files it may or may not have downloaded, including the folder you created to store it in.

For example purposes here is a crude representation of my folder hierarchy.

I have the server and SteamCMD stored here --> C:\KF2_Dedicated\

Folder -- \kf2\
Folder -- \steamcmd\

I have separated my SteamCMD files, and the folder I will use for the dedicated server to simplify the setup. You do not have to store your server or the SteamCMD files in the root of your hard drive ( C:\ ) as I did, I simply left it there.

2) If you haven't already, go ahead and make a folder setup similar to mine in the example above. Your "steamcmd" folder should have contents similar to the following:

• appcache
  
• bin
  
• config
  
• depotcache
  
• steamapps
  
• steamcmd.exe
  
• ( Some other folders and .DLL files, that I am too lazy to fully list out)

It's okay if you don't see the extensions like ".exe" or ".dll" that I am talking about, as you may just not have Windows showing the extensions. This is okay. As long as what I describe seems correct.

3) Now for the fun! Go ahead and open that sucka', and by that I mean open up the SteamCMD tool. It should do it's "hoo-hah" and say some junk we don't care about. However, when it's done you should be left with this:

Steam>

Indicating that Steam awaits to do our bidding. Alright, here's a break down of all that we're going to do:

1. Login into Steam
   
2. Set the KF2 Server download location
   
3. Actually download the KF2 Server

4) First thing first, let's go ahead and login anonymously. What we are doing here is basically logging into Steam without actually entering our own personal credentials. I am not sure if it was intended to work with your own Steam account, but mine never did. It would always fail attempting to download. It matters not, as the anonymous account is typically used for this exact situation.
So return to your SteamCMD prompt (" Steam> ") and go ahead and enter the following:

login anonymous

It should say something to sound of "Connecting anonymously to Steam public...". You should see a few "OK"s, and then be returned back to the "Steam>" prompt.

5)Now we need to tell Steam where to put our KF2 Server files. You can do this by running this command:

force_install_dir ..\kf2\

Note, that the directory argument you give to this command should point to where ever you plan to store the KF2 Server. Based on my little walk-through, this is the folder we had in our hierarchy. The ".." in "..\kf2\" , is simply a shortcut for saying, "The location of the "kf2" folder, is one folder back from my current location. In this example, your current location being "C:\KF2_Dedicated\steamcmd\".

Running this command simply says "Hey Steam, the next game you download I want you to put it *HERE*, despite where ever you feel it should go."

5) Now time to actually download the server. In the SteamCMD tool, run the following command:

app_update 232130

Now, it is VERY CRUCIAL that you enter the app ID correctly. If you enter the wrong one, it won't hurt anything, but you will attempt to download the wrong thing and it will most likely fail.

At this point, it should say that its downloading a bunch of junk with something like:

Downloading blah blah blah 5.24 [000500] / [95423654321]

There should be a number the represents the percent as well, in my example the "5.24".
Now you can sit back and relax. Please do, your hard work has paid off and your this much closer to your server.

I want to make a note here that if they ever update the game, you will have to also run the "app_update" command again to download the latest update. The server will still start if you don't, however, you will never see it in the server browser as the game ignores servers that aren't with latest version.

6)Now after a few minutes, your game should be finished downloading. If you navigate to the folder that it downloaded the server to, you should the following:

• KF2Server.bat
  
• steamapps
  
• KFGame
  
• Engine
  
• Binaries

SUCCESS!

The hard part is over. Now all we have to do is configure the minimum for it to work properly.

7) In the kf2 folder we created, make a copy of the "KF2Server.bat" file. Once again, if you don't have extensions showing, this is okay. Simply copy the file that has the matching name. Name the copy "KF2_Custom". If you right click on the file, and select edit it should show the following:

start .\Binaries\win64\kfserver kf-bioticslab

This will launch the server with the default settings, but most likely this is not what you want.
For this walk-through, we will leave the map defaulted to Bioticslab, but we will set the administrator password for the server, and set an additional IP for it to listen on. We do this by changing:

start .\Binaries\win64\kfserver kf-bioticslab

TO

start .\Binaries\win64\kfserver kf-bioticslab?adminpassword=ilovedosh?Multihome=*IP ADDRESS*

Your password can be changed to whatever your heart desires. You can leave it, "ilovedosh" if you really want to. The IP address, we will get to in a moment. First I want to break this down, to help you understand what exactly it is doing.

Looking at this:

start .\Binaries\win64\kfserver kf-bioticslab?adminpassword=ilovedosh?Multihome=*IP ADDRESS*

The question mark is a way for KF2 to understand that there are settings you want to apply, and you are doing so by separating them with "?"s. The settings are implemented in what is called "key value pairs". Very simply like they are read, "this setting" = "this value". Relative to our example, the setting "adminpassword" needs to be "ilovedosh".

You dig'? You dig'.

Now the IP address is the same situation as the "adminpassword", but I am guessing since you describe yourself as "not tech savvy" you most likely don't know it off the top of your head. If you do, that's great. If not, let me show you or erm'... describe as best as text allows me, how to find it.

There is a point and click method, however, I feel this is quicker and you just don't feel as cool when you do it the other way. Follow these steps:

1. Hit "Windows Key" + R , on your keyboard. A little window called "Run" should pop up in the lower left side of your screen.
   
2. Type "cmd" in the text field, all lower-case and no quotes and hit enter.
   
3. A mysterious black box will pop up, this is okay. Do not be afraid. This is just your Windows friendly Command Prompt. This prompt works in an identical fashion to the SteamCMD prompt. Go ahead and click on the box, and type the following:
   
   ipconfig
   
   You should get something spit back that looks similar to this:
   
   

   Windows IP Configuration
   
   
   Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:
   
      Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
      Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::4492:7aaf:c25e:9677%12
      IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.50
      Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
      Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
   
   Ethernet adapter Tunngle:
   
      Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
      Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
   
   Ethernet adapter VirtualBox Host-Only Network:
   
      Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
      IPv6 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 2620:9b::199b:9382
      Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::88d:57d6:85a:d4ae%18
      IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.56.1
      Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
      Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 2620:9b::1900:1
   
   Tunnel adapter isatap.{B6D4FD41-49A3-42FC-B9CE-A65291EA7CF3}:
   
      Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
      Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
   
   Tunnel adapter isatap.{80B4E9FC-23C7-4897-9782-2CAFB9DD90AA}:
   
      Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
      Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
   

   
   We only care about the "Ethernet adapters". Specifically, we are looking are looking for the one labeled "Local Area Connection". If your connected via wireless (Good god, you game on wireless? Get tapped into a physical wire.), it may be named "Wireless Network Connection" instead.
   
   Now more specifically we are looking for your "IPv4 Address" under "Local Area Connection".
   In the snippet of output I provided, my local network address is "192.168.1.50" and this is what we want. Write it down, or leave the window open. I suggest writing down in case you ever need it again.
   
   Now returning to our "KF2_Custom.bat" file, our final change to the file should like this.
   
   start .\Binaries\win64\kfserver kf-bioticslab?adminpassword=ilovedosh?Multihome=192.168.1.50
   
   We need to set the Multihome setting because we are trying to fake out a listen server. Normally, this would be a dedicated server that is only accessible via an Internet IP address but since we are running it on our local machine, we need to be able to access it ourselves to A) Even see it show up in the server list and B) Be able to play, of course!
   
   The Multihome setting in layman's terms basically tells the server "Hey, I need you to respond to my Internet IP so my friends and other people can see you, but I also need you to respond to my local network address, so that I can join as well".
   
   My apologies here, I seem to have gotten lazy and stopped stating the step numbers...
   
   You can go ahead and save the file with the changes we have made.
   Technically, we are done. If you were to double click on the "KF2_Custom" file we just made, it should spin up your server with the pretty much the default setup. You could then open KF2, browse for servers, check the LAN tab and your server should pop up after a few seconds. Should pop up as "Killing Floor 2 Server" or something generic like that. If you look through the link, there are some files that need to be tweaked to change the server name and etc. .
   
   Unfortunately, there are two problems here:
   
   
   1. Your friends probably can't join at the moment.
      
   2. At any point in time, you may not be able to join yourself.
   
   Your friends probably can't join because I doubt that the ports are forwarded on your router.
   This is a requirement for this to work at all. If the ports don't get forwarded, your router has no way of knowing for sure where to send your friends when they attempt to connect. Technically, if you have UPNP (Universal Plug and Play) it should forward automatically. However, in my experience it is terribly unreliable and it works much better to do it yourself.
   
   Now the problem of you not being able to join is related to that the IP address on your computer is most likely not statically assigned. Meaning if your router decides to change it, it will no longer match the Multihome setting or the forwarded ports and thus not work any longer.
   
   I would be glad to help you with these as well if neither of these are setup for you.
   However, I have been typing for quite some time and technically only was stepping you through how to setup the server.
   
   Please excuse any poor grammar, or punctuation use. I'm sure after this much I probably made several mistakes.
   
   I hope this was helpful on some level, and really hope this got your server at least running.
   

[Lord Pizzant]

I was having problems with my server too so I wrote a little .bat file... but first thing's first.

I installed my SteamCMD.exe to D:/KF2Server.
Then I created a new text dokument in the sam folder as SteamCMD.exe named kf2update.txt with follow ing text in it:

// kf2update.txt
//
login anonymous
force_install_dir ./kf2server
app_update 232130 validate
quit

^This will as most of you know update and Validate all files.

But now to the fun part.

I made another textdocument named kf2launcher in the same folder with this content:

@echo off
Start ./steamcmd.exe +runscript kf2update.txt
cd ./kf2server
Start /min /wait .\Binaries\win64\kfserver kf-bioticslab?AdminName=AnameHere?bMapVote=true?RepeatLimit=0?bUseMapList=true?GameDifficulty=2.0?KFGameLenght=1
Exit

And saved it as kf2launcher.bat

And when you run the kf2launcher.bat it will start SteamCMD and run the nessisary scripts for updating the server and then close SteamCMD.
After this it will jump into the killing floor 2 server directory (where the server .exe is located) and run it with my specified settings:

 
kf-bioticslab?AdminName=AnameHere?bMapVote=true?RepeatLimit=0?bUseMapList=true?GameDifficulty=2.0?KFGameLenght=1

Sure it takes some time to start the server but it will allways be up to date.

I do not know if this will help any of you but I still wanted to share my solution.