Setup your tShock server

This guide explains how to setup a tShock Terraria server. The setup is very similar to Vanilla terraria servers, but tShock is a platform intended to give more utilities and moderation tools that vanilla servers lack of.

Basic setup steps

1. Stop the server if it started up, then go to Files window in the FPS Dashboard, now without entering any folder, remove all "world" related files
2. In the FPS Dashboard, click on "Startup" and check the initial setup guide if required. The tShock config file is located in tshock folder
3. Upon modifying the Startup options, now add the plugins you desire to add. Most of the times, plugins are light, so you may drag and drop them into the ServerPlugins folder

Connect to your server:

1. Make sure to press "Start" and the server starts without crashes
2. In Terraria, click on "multiplayer", then on "join via IP"
3. Choose a character or create one
4. In the Console window of the FPS dashboard, look for your address. It has the following format: aFruitName.fps.ms:25555
5. For Server IP address, you would write "aFruitName.fps.ms", click on Accept. For port, write the provided numbers in the address. This data gets stored in Terraria

Make an admin/moderation account

1. Look in the console for a line that says To setup the server, join the game and type /setup [Number]
2. In the game, run /setup "number" where "number" is seen in the previously mentioned console line
3. In game, run /register "user" "password" owner which will make an account with owner privileges. Do not forget these credentials!
4. In game, run /login "user" "password" using your new credentials
5. In game, run /setup to stop the setup mode from being prompted in console