Hosting a Vault Hunters 3rd Edition Server: RAM and Setup
Vault Hunters 3rd Edition is built around one repeatable loop: you open a vault, drop into a randomly generated dungeon with a timer running, and come back out with loot, experience and skill points — or you do not come back out at all. For the server, every run means a slice of world that did not exist a moment earlier, so a map that keeps growing and CPU spikes at exactly the point where someone steps through a portal. Budget for a machine from the heaviest category: comparable content packs such as All the Mods 10 ask for at least 10 GB RAM, and RAM costs EUR 1.10 per GB per month on the MC-Node budget line.
How does the vault loop actually work?
Outside a vault you are simply playing Minecraft: you build a base and gather the materials needed to open a vault at all. That preparation can easily take longer than the run itself. The vault is the heart of it: you step through a portal, land in a generated dungeon and a clock starts ticking. Within that window you crack open chests, fight mobs and work towards the objective of that particular vault. If the timer runs out or you die, the run is over.
What you carry back out feeds into two things. Materials and gear improve your kit, while the experience turns into vault levels and skill points. Those points go into abilities and talents, which let you survive tougher vaults, which in turn drop better loot. That is the engine of the pack: every run makes the next one that bit more achievable.
Watch out for the name clash: since 1.21 "Tricky Trials", vanilla Minecraft also has Vaults — the key-operated chests in Trial Chambers. Those have nothing to do with this pack.
Why does a vault hit your server harder than ordinary survival?
On a normal survival server, world generation is mostly an up-front cost: players explore a lot of fresh terrain in the first few weeks, after which the server mainly loads world that already exists. Vault Hunters turns that on its head. Every run generates terrain that did not exist before, in a separate dimension, and it keeps doing so for as long as the server is up. World generation is the single most expensive job a Minecraft server performs.
You will not spot this in an average. CPU usage can look perfectly healthy while tick times collapse at very specific moments: four players opening vaults within a minute of each other means four bursts of world generation at once, on top of the mods doing their work every tick (every server update cycle). That is why the speed of a single core matters more than the number of cores. The MC-Node budget line runs on AMD EPYC 7443P, the premium line on AMD Ryzen 9 9950X.
Which optimisation mods you can add depends on the modloader: on NeoForge, FerriteCore (30 to 40 percent lower RAM usage), Canary and ModernFix are the usual suspects. Check that they are purely server-side, because a mod list that differs from the client's will keep players out. Our guide to optimising your Minecraft server explains how to use profiling to find out where the time actually goes.
How much RAM and what hardware do you need?
Stick to the recommendation published with the pack itself; it changes from version to version. As a guideline for this category: All the Mods 10 (400 to 500+ mods, NeoForge, Minecraft 1.21.1) asks for at least 10 GB RAM, around 12 GB for a small group and 14 to 16 GB with 5 or more players. With Vault Hunters, scale primarily with the number of players running vaults at the same time.
Mind the Java version too: ATM10 needs Java 21 and will not start on Java 17. Getting that wrong does not give you a slow server, it gives you a crash on startup. Disk speed is the third factor: on a HDD, the startup time of a large pack climbs past 10 minutes, while on SSD it is 2 to 3 minutes. With Vault Hunters that counts double, because you are writing new chunks (the 16x16 blocks the world is stored in) all evening. NVMe SSD storage is standard in every MC-Node package.
| RAM | Budget line per month | What it is usually meant for |
|---|---|---|
| 2 GB | EUR 2.20 | Vanilla or plugin server, a handful of players |
| 4 GB | EUR 4.40 | Lighter packs; Cobblemon packs often run fine on 4 to 8 GB |
| 8 GB | EUR 8.80 | Heavy pack with few players, below the minimum of the largest content packs |
| 15 GB | EUR 15.00 | Large content pack with 5+ players, headroom for spikes |
At 6 and 15 GB the per-GB rate drops: EUR 1.05 and EUR 1.00. The premium line costs EUR 2.50 per GB and is aimed at servers where tick stability under peak load matters most. You can compare the options side by side on Minecraft hosting from MC-Node.
What does a growing world do to your disk space and backups?
Every completed vault leaves data behind on disk. Your world folder therefore does not grow with playtime, it grows with the number of runs: two dedicated players doing vaults every evening will inflate the map faster than ten players building a village. Backups are the real bottleneck, because they take as long as it takes to read and write the entire map, and so get a little slower every week. Think about what you would restore, too: a backup that is an hour old costs somebody a complete vault run. What helps:
- Clear out the vault dimension periodically, for example at the start of a new season. Announce it, because anything players left lying around in there will be gone.
- Keep the overworld small with a worldborder. The content lives inside the vaults, so you do not need a map thousands of blocks across.
- Check whether the pack ships its own entity clean-up. Plugins such as ClearLagg belong to Paper and Purpur and will not run on a modloader.
- After a few months, verify that your backup window still fits. A reset is cheaper than ever-lengthening backups.
Why do players so often want to start together?
Vault Hunters is a progression race, which makes the start date matter more than it does for most packs. Your vault level and skill points decide which vaults you can survive, so anyone joining two weeks late has too few points and gear that is too weak for the vaults everyone else is already running. A welcome kit will not fix that; it is baked into the mechanics.
That is why most servers running this pack work in seasons: an announced start date, a whitelist that stays closed until then, everyone beginning on day one, and a reset after a few months. It solves your world size problem at the same time. If you do decide to leave the server permanently open, be upfront that newcomers will be behind and encourage the group to take them along on their runs.
Setting up a Vault Hunters server step by step
The steps are the same as for any large modpack; the pitfalls are in the details. If this is your first time working with packs, read up on what a Minecraft modpack is and how to install one.
- Choose your package on RAM rather than price: take the pack's recommendation and add headroom for simultaneous vault runs.
- Download the official server build of exactly the same pack version your players have in their launcher. A mismatched version number is the single most common reason nobody can join.
- Set the Java version the pack requires in the control panel.
- Upload the server files through the Pterodactyl panel or SFTP and accept the EULA.
- Start the server and leave it alone until you see "Done" in the console; the first boot takes a long time, even on NVMe.
- Turn the whitelist on and back up the fresh world as the zero point for the season.
- Test with two or three players opening vaults simultaneously and watch the tick times during that peak.
When is Vault Hunters the wrong choice?
If budget is the deciding factor, this pack probably is not the right fit. A 2 GB server at EUR 2.20 per month is fine for vanilla with a few plugins, but a large content pack costs a multiple of that, every single month.
If you want Bedrock players on board, that is another dead end. Geyser with Floodgate lets Bedrock players onto a Java server, but not into a world full of blocks and items that only exist inside the mods. The same applies to anyone hoping to run plugins: EssentialsX, LuckPerms, CoreProtect and GriefPrevention belong to Paper or Purpur, not to a modloader. If that is what you are after, look through our overview of the best Minecraft plugins instead.
And if your group mostly wants to build together without a race element, there are lighter options: Cobblemon packs often run on 4 to 8 GB. Vault Hunters is at its best with a settled group that actively wants the competitive edge.
Frequently asked questions
How much RAM does a Vault Hunters server need? Follow the recommendation published with the pack itself and scale with your player count. As a guideline for this class: All the Mods 10 asks for at least 10 GB, around 12 GB for a small group and 14 to 16 GB with 5 or more players. On the MC-Node budget line, 15 GB costs EUR 15.00 per month.
Why is my world folder growing so fast? Because every vault run generates new chunks in a separate dimension that then stays on disk. The growth follows the number of runs, not the number of hours played. A worldborder around the overworld and a periodic clean-up of the vault dimension keep it manageable.
Can Bedrock players join a Vault Hunters server? No. Geyser with Floodgate does let Bedrock players onto a Java server, but mods add blocks, items and dimensions the Bedrock client knows nothing about. If you want them included, pick a plugin server on Paper or Purpur.
Should I run in seasons with resets? You do not have to, but it solves two problems at once: everyone starts level, which matters enormously in a progression race, and your world size goes back to zero. Without resets the map keeps growing and your backups get steadily slower.
Do plugins such as EssentialsX work on a Vault Hunters server? Not directly. Plugins belong to Bukkit, Spigot, Paper and Purpur; Vault Hunters runs on a modloader that loads mods. For homes, warps or claims you will need a server-side mod instead.