Start a Team Fortress 2 server
Deploy a Team Fortress 2 server on SLASHPLAY, join it from Steam or the console, invite your friends and stop it again when you're done.
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This guide takes you from zero to a live Team Fortress 2 server on cp_dustbowl that your friends can join, then shows you how to stop it so it stops costing anything. It takes a couple of minutes, and you don’t touch a config file or your router.
Before you start
- A SLASHPLAY account. Sign in at slashplay.gg/dashboard with Discord or Steam. See Create your account.
- Tokens on your team. A SMALL TF2 server costs 3 tokens an hour ($0.03). New accounts start with 6 tokens, enough for about two hours. See How tokens work.
- Team Fortress 2 installed through Steam. It’s free to play.
Steps
- Open Deploy. Sign in and click the Deploy tab in the top bar. Find Team Fortress 2 and click Deploy on its card.
- Pick a region. Every server runs in EU - Germany today. The other regions are coming soon: choosing one lets you vote for it. See Regions.
- Pick a size. SMALL (1 CPU, 2 GB) is fine for a group of friends. For a full 24-player server, MEDIUM gives it more room. There’s only one version, so the window doesn’t ask for one.
- Deploy. Click Deploy · 3/HR (the number follows the size you picked). You land on the Servers tab and the server shows Starting. It’s usually live within a minute or two.
- Join. When the card says Live, click Launch in Steam. Steam starts TF2 and joins your server.
- Invite friends. Click Invite link on the card and send them that page’s URL. They don’t need a SLASHPLAY account.
- Stop when you’re done. Click Save & Stop on the card. Next time, press Restore.
Joining from the console
If Launch in Steam doesn’t work for you, join by hand:
- Turn on the console once: in TF2, open Options → Keyboard → Advanced and tick Enable developer console.
- Click Copy on the server card. It copies the whole connect line, for example:
connect GrandOspreyFeather.slashplay.gg:30057- In the game, press ~ (the key under Esc), paste the line and press Enter.
If you turn on a join password, the copied line includes it, like connect address; password yourpassword.
What your friends see
The invite page shows the server’s status and address and tries to launch TF2 for them automatically. They can also click Launch in Steam, or Copy connect and follow Steam not working? Join from the in-game console. If the server is still starting, the page says so and updates when it’s live. See Connecting and inviting.
What happens next
While the server is live, your team’s balance pays for it by the minute. Save & Stop saves your config, maps and addons, shuts the server down and stops the hourly cost. Restore brings it back with the same settings and files, with a new address and invite link.
On the server page (Manage on the card), the Console tab takes any server command, like changelevel ctf_2fort, and the General tab has the join password switch. See The server page.
Troubleshooting
The server has said Starting for a few minutes. Slow boots are retried automatically. If it ends up Crashed, you weren’t charged: press Restore or deploy again. See Troubleshooting.
Launch in Steam does nothing. Make sure Steam is running, then click again. Your browser asks before opening Steam: tick Always allow. Or join from the console.
My friends can’t find the server. Don’t send them looking in the server browser: share the invite link or the address. After a restore, both change, so send the new ones.
The deploy button says Fund & Deploy. Your team is out of tokens. See Fund a team.