Guide: Multiplayer with friends NOT on same network

[Ihatebirds28]

Hi guys, I thought I would post a little guide to try to help anyone who wants to play multiplayer vintage story with friends who aren't connected to the same local network. For context, my friends and I live in the same country (Australia) but in different cities. As someone who doesn't know anything about games and setting up servers, I found it slightly difficult to find easy and clear guides for newbies, so I thought I would share the way that ended up working for us in case someone can benefit from it! Before this I tried using Hamachi but it doesn't work on Mac anymore . 

We ended up using Tailscale, which from my limited understanding is software that allows you to connect devices from different networks together.

Here are the steps we followed:

1.  Download Tailscale from their website and instal the app 

2. Create a Tailscale account that you are comfortable sharing the password and stuff with your friends (As you can use google directly to sign up, I made a separate new gmail account specifically for this purpose before doing all of this. Then I shared the email and the password with my friends)

Note: Once logged in to the app, Tailscale will show you an IP address for your computer (e.g., 100.x.x.x). This is your Tailscale IP address (need it later) 

3.  Ask your friends to also download Tailscale on their device and login using the email and password you sent them. So you are both logged in using the same account.

After this, their device should show up on your network. 

4. Now you can open up the Vintage story game, go to singleplayer and create a new world. ( I think you can also do this on an existing world)  

5. Once in world, press Esc, then press "Open to Lan". (the game will give you an IP address, ignore this) 

6. Now your friends can also open their game,  go to multiplayer and press add server. It will ask for a server name, IP and password.  

(Note: dont have a password so they can leave it blank)

7. Now share your Tailscale IP address to your friend (noted earlier). They can use this to fill out the IP. 

After this they should be able to connect to your server

 

When you want to play again another time, make sure everyone's tailscale apps are open and working. The host of the world just has to press open to lan again and everyone should be able to join the server again. 

Hopefully this helps!

 

[Jessie Lamb]

Oh my gosh!
Worked like a charm, logging in on Tailscale a was a little time consuming because of the steps that they made you take. 
The rest was easy peasy. Absolutely no issues with dysconnectivity and worked fine with mods.
I just got the game a week ago with another friend and didn't want to go through the hassle of DIY'ing it. 
Thank you!

Edited December 16, 2024 by Jessie Lamb

[Cudlbug]

i seem to not be able to get this to work, im unsure why

[Andrew King]

A friend and I have both downloaded Tailscale to our computers.  We can both get to the admin dashboard on the same Google account, however, it will only show his computer.  My computer does not show up, despite us both having the app with the same account open.  Help?

[Flakeinator]

Can a DNS name for the network be used? I am asking because I opened the port on my router and it only gets directed to my server. The DNS name won't change for me even though my IP has the potential to change which is up to my ISP.

[Knokes]

It worked for me thanks!

[Funk You Up]

The GOAT right here. Followed step by step and it worked, even on shitty university wifi.

[Brad E]

Just look up how to forward port 42420 on your router. Then lookup your WAN IP on google using any number of sites. Start up the server client .exe found in the game's installation files, then tell your friend to connect to [WAN IP]:42420. (you do the same to connect to your own server or connect to 172.0.0.1 which is the local host address)

[SamKei]

 

16 minutes ago, Brad E said:

Just look up how to forward port 42420 on your router. Then lookup your WAN IP on google using any number of sites. Start up the server client .exe found in the game's installation files, then tell your friend to connect to [WAN IP]:42420. (you do the same to connect to your own server or connect to 172.0.0.1 which is the local host address)

A lot of people have an ISP that uses CGNAT so do not have a public IPV4 address that can be accessed via port forwarding. Tailscale is a great solution for these individuals.