In the harsh depths ten thousand meters below Europa's ice, Barotrauma has earned a fond reputation among multiplayer fans as the ultimate friendship test. A piercing flood alarm echoes throughout the submarine; the mechanic shouts over voice chat, “Who stole my welding tool again?!”; the electrical engineer slips up with a logic circuit and blows up the nuclear reactor; the medic chases dying crewmates with fentanyl and morphine; and the captain watches helplessly on sonar as abyssal monsters bite through the command tower's hull. That combination of chaos, desperation, and uncontrollable laughter gives its teamwork a charm few other games can match!
Why Is Barotrauma Such a Source of Co-op Fun?
- Tightly defined roles for a 16-person crew:
- Captain: Steer through narrow gaps in the ice, watch unidentified deep-sea creatures on sonar, and issue orders throughout the vessel.
- Security officer: Operate coilguns, armor-piercing railguns, and depth charges; put on a powered diving suit and leave the submarine to fight abyssal creatures.
- Electrical engineer: Keep the reactor's fission fuel rods balanced, wire automated circuits with a screwdriver, and prevent shipwide power outages.
- Mechanic: Patch leaks wherever they occur, operate pumps, and repair chewed-up hull sections and broken machinery.
- Medic: Diagnose internal injuries, oxygen deprivation, infections, and fractures; prepare antidotes and pull crewmates back from the brink of death.
- Hardcore electromechanical simulation and deep wiring systems: Think of it as a submarine circuit-design competition. Using AND gates, relays, and signal checkers, your squad's technical enthusiast can build a fully automated reactor with overload protection or a fire-control system that retaliates automatically when monsters attack.
- An immersive deep-sea Campaign: Travel between outposts and accept jobs, earn Marks to upgrade the submarine's hull and buy top-tier sonar and diving suits, make choices amid faction conflicts, and gradually uncover the secrets of alien ruins beneath Europa's abyss.
Why Set Up a Dedicated Campaign Server?
A deep-sea campaign needs to preserve the submarine's inventory, every crewmember's talents, and outpost reputation over the long term. If it runs on the host's personal computer and an unstable connection disconnects them, the whole vessel immediately loses control and sinks. A separate dedicated server is the best way to support a long-running campaign:
- Server AppID:
1026340(anonymous SteamCMD download) - Core communication ports:
UDP 27015(main game data) andUDP 27016(query port) - Configuration file:
serversettings.xml(campaign progress, traitor-mode toggle, and password) - Complete setup guide: For detailed settings, see Barotrauma Dedicated Server Setup and serversettings.xml Tuning.
An Easier Way to Manage Your Squad's Server
We recommend our open-source LanGame Server Manager (LGSM) (GitHub: SZSLGJCOM/LanGame-Server-Manager). LGSM supports one-click Barotrauma dedicated server startup, automatic avoidance of port conflicts, and full automatic campaign snapshots of Daemons/Saves, protecting dozens of hours of progress when a submarine gets torn apart or explodes.
Playing Across Networks and Joining the Server
- With a public IP: Forward ports 27015/27016 on your router. Friends can enter
public-IP:27015in the game's server list to board directly. - Without a public IP on rental or campus networks: Open the LINK feature in LanGame OS Orbit together, join a private encrypted LAN room, and enter the virtual network adapter IP. Low latency and zero packet loss let you weigh anchor and descend into the abyss!