ServerKeeper

SERVER KEEPER

A lightweight, server-side maintenance mod for Core Keeper dedicated servers. It keeps your world's entity count under control to reduce the rubber-banding and desync that creep in as a server stays alive over days and weeks — even when the host has plenty of CPU and RAM to spare.

THE PROBLEM

Core Keeper runs on an Entity Component System (DOTS). Every dropped item, projectile and creature is a live entity that the server has to simulate every tick and stream to clients. On long-running worlds these entities accumulate — and because they are saved to disk, they survive server restarts. The result is a steadily heavier simulation that shows up in-game as rubber-banding, hitching and delayed interactions.

Server Keeper finds and removes the entities that no longer need to exist, and because the world is then saved with fewer of them, the reduction is permanent.

WHAT IT DOES

- Scans the server world on a configurable interval and logs an Entity Report (dropped items, projectiles, enemies, containers, plants, players) straight to your server console.
- Removes dropped items that have been on the ground past a configurable time-to-live, with an option to never touch items near a player.
- Enforces a hard cap on the total number of dropped items, removing the oldest first.
- Clears stray/orphaned projectiles.
- Optional, conservative reduction of far-away enemies (off by default).

SAFE BY DESIGN

- Ships in analysis-only mode: out of the box it only measures and reports, so you can validate what it sees before anything is ever deleted.
- Never removes players, NPCs/merchants, containers, player-placed builds, or bosses.
- Conservative defaults: only dropped items and projectiles are enabled; enemies, containers and plants are report-only.

HOW IT WORKS

- 100% server-side. Clients do not need to install it.
- No dependencies (no library mods required).
- Configured through a simple config.json file; everything is reported to the server console/log.
- Runs automatically on a timer, and can be triggered on demand by dropping a trigger file in the mod's config folder (handy for headless servers).

CONFIGURATION (server-keeper.json)

- analysisOnly: measure-only mode.
- scanIntervalSeconds / cleanupIntervalSeconds: how often to report and clean.
- droppedItems: ttlMinutes, ignoreNearPlayers, radius, maxTotal.
- projectiles: ttlSeconds.
- enemies (opt-in): cleanupDistance, maxReducedPerPass, excludeBosses.

The exact config path is printed to the server log on startup.

RECOMMENDED FIRST RUN

Start in analysis-only mode for a day or two, compare the Entity Report against what you see in-game, and only then enable cleanup. Always back up your world before enabling deletion.

Made for dedicated server admins who want a smoother, lower-overhead world without babysitting it.