How to Move Your Aska World to a Dedicated Server Without Losing Your Village

To move your Aska world to a dedicated server without losing progress, back up your local save, deploy a dedicated server, upload the save file via SFTP, and configure the server to load it. Done in that order, your village, NPCs, resources, and raid progress transfer intact.

Aska is a Viking survival co-op game played solo or with up to 3 friends, and it has maintained an active community with an all-time Steam peak of 10,637 concurrent players. Many groups start their village on one player’s PC during a locally-hosted session, then decide they want a persistent world that stays online independently of any single player. This guide covers that exact transition.

How to Move Your Aska World to a Dedicated Server

Let’s see the seven steps that help you move your Aska world to a dedicated server:

Step 1: Choose a dedicated server plan sized for your crew.

Since Aska supports a maximum of 4 players, plan sizing is straightforward. Ping Players’ Aska server hosting offers three tiers, all sized for groups of up to 4 players, differing mainly in RAM headroom for raid waves and NPC villager simulation: 4 GB at $10.76 per month, 5 GB at $13.46 per month, and 6 GB at $16.16 per month. For most crews, the 4 GB tier is sufficient unless you are running a heavily built-out village with large raid encounters.

Step 2: Back up your local save file before doing anything else.

Locate your local Aska save on the PC that has been hosting your sessions and make a full copy before starting the migration. This protects your progress in case anything goes wrong during the transfer, and it costs nothing but a few minutes.

Step 3: Deploy your server and access its file structure.

Deploy your server through the control panel and it will be live within 60 seconds. Once active, use the platform’s full SFTP access to view the server’s file directory and locate the save folder structure where your uploaded world needs to go.

Step 4: Upload your local save via SFTP.

Connect to your server using an SFTP client and upload your backed-up save file into the correct save directory. Ping Players’ own knowledgebase publishes a dedicated guide for this exact step, since it is one of the most common requests from players transitioning off a locally-hosted session.

Step 5: Configure the server to load your uploaded world.

From the control panel, set the server to launch with your uploaded save rather than generating a new world. Double-check the world name matches exactly what the server expects, since a mismatch will cause the server to create a fresh world instead of loading yours.

Step 6: Test the world before inviting your crew.

Connect to the server yourself first and confirm your village, structures, and NPCs all appear as expected. Fix any issues now, before the rest of your crew tries to join and finds a broken or incomplete world.

Step 7: Enable automated backups going forward.

Once your world is confirmed working on the dedicated server, turn on automated backups so future updates or changes do not put your migrated progress at risk again.

Why This Matters More for Aska Than Most Games

Locally-hosted Aska sessions have a documented reliability problem that makes migration worth doing sooner rather than later. A Steam discussion thread titled “Disconnection due to timeout” confirmed recurring disconnects every 10 to 15 minutes, affecting hosts and clients across multiple regions, with reports spanning from mid-2024 through 2025 and persisting across several patches.

A separate Steam thread on multiplayer lag documented severe lag for joining players within minutes, even in sessions with minimal activity. The developer responded directly, asking for system and server specifications to help diagnose the cause, which confirms this is an acknowledged, ongoing issue rather than an isolated report.

Moving to a dedicated server does not automatically resolve every networking issue Aska has, since some of the reported problems are tied to the game’s own P2P and Steam networking layers. What it does provide is a stable, always-on environment independent of any single player’s PC, removing one entire category of risk: the world disappearing or corrupting because the original host’s machine went offline mid-session.

The Bottom Line

Moving your Aska world to a dedicated server is a straightforward process once you follow the steps in order: back up first, deploy the server, upload the save correctly, and verify before inviting your crew back in. Given the documented reliability problems with locally-hosted sessions, from persistent timeout disconnects to developer-acknowledged lag, migrating to stable, always-on infrastructure protects the progress your crew has already built.

Frequently Asked Questions About Migrating Your Aska World

These are the questions players ask most often when moving their Aska world to a dedicated server.

Will I lose my village if I move my Aska save to a dedicated server?

No, provided you follow the correct upload process. Back up your local save first, then upload it to the server’s designated save directory via SFTP and configure the server to load that specific world rather than generating a new one. A mismatched world name is the most common cause of an apparent progress loss, since it causes the server to create a fresh world instead of loading your upload.

How much does a dedicated Aska server cost?

Ping Players’ Aska server plans start at $10.76 per month for 4 GB RAM, supporting up to 4 players. The 5 GB plan costs $13.46 per month and the 6 GB plan costs $16.16 per month, both providing additional headroom for raid waves and NPC villager simulation rather than supporting more players, since Aska’s player cap is 4 regardless of plan.

Why does my locally-hosted Aska session keep disconnecting?

Locally-hosted Aska sessions have a documented, widespread timeout disconnect issue affecting hosts and clients across multiple regions since mid-2024. Community reports and developer responses suggest this is tied to the game’s P2P and Steam networking layers rather than individual player connections. Moving to a dedicated server on stable infrastructure removes the risk of the world going offline when the original host’s PC does, though it may not resolve every networking issue on its own.