Installing Steam Workshop Mods on a Starbound Server

Why mod Starbound at all

Starbound already gives you a galaxy to wander through, but after enough planets the formula starts to feel familiar. The Steam Workshop is where the community fills the gaps: new races, weapons, mechs, quality-of-life tweaks, and total overhauls that change how the game plays. Dedicated servers support these mods, and HolyHosting's panel keeps the upload process short. This guide walks through the whole flow from subscribing in Steam to restarting the server with mods active.

1. Subscribe to the mods in Steam

Start with the source.

• Open Steam and head to the Starbound Workshop section.
• Browse until you find mods that look interesting.
• Click the green Subscribe button on each one to queue the download.

Give Steam a moment to pull the files, then launch Starbound once. Loading the game in singleplayer triggers the client to finish unpacking everything, which saves you from chasing missing assets later.

2. Find the Workshop folder

The files Steam downloaded live deep inside the game directory.

• In your Steam library, right-click Starbound.
• Choose Manage, then Browse Local Files.

• A file explorer window opens. Note the path at the top of the window.
• Click into steamapps to reach the root Steam folder.

• From there, drill into workshop, then content, then 211820 (Starbound's app ID).

3. Rename and bundle the .pak files

Every subscribed mod has its own subfolder, and most of them contain a `.pak` file with the same generic name. If you upload them as-is, they will overwrite each other on the server and you will end up wondering why only one mod loaded.

Open each folder and rename the `.pak` inside to something unique. The mod's title, the numeric folder ID, or any short label all work. Then move every renamed `.pak` into a single staging folder.

Once the files are gathered, pack them into a `.zip` or `.rar` archive with something like 7-Zip. A single archive uploads faster and avoids the per-file errors you would otherwise hit on large batches.

4. Upload through the server panel

• Open your control panel and stop the server before touching files.
• From the panel sidebar, open your file manager (or connect with an FTP client) and sign in with your panel password.
• Enter the mods folder.

• Click Upload in the top-left toolbar.
• Drag your archive (or individual `.pak` files) into the upload area on the right.

• Wait for the transfer to hit 100% and return to the mods folder.
• If you uploaded a `.zip` or `.rar`, tick its checkbox and choose Unzip to extract the `.pak` files in place.

When the mods folder shows the unpacked `.pak` files, start the server again. It will load them on boot.

Wrapping up

That is the full loop: subscribe, rename, archive, upload, restart. Renaming every `.pak` by hand is mildly annoying, but it is still less work than the modding setup most other games demand. With your additions in place, hop on and see what the community has done to the universe this time.