Setting up custom maps and modes on your Team Fortress 2 server

What has kept Team Fortress 2 alive for years are the community servers: servers with custom maps and modes such as trade and minigames. That is exactly what makes your server unique. In this article you'll learn how to add custom maps, set up a map rotation and give your server its own character via the MC-Node panel.

Uploading custom maps

Community maps for Team Fortress 2 come as map files that you place in your server's maps folder. Thanks to the NVMe storage of your MC-Node server, even large custom maps load quickly.

1. Log in at panel.mc-node.net and open your Team Fortress 2 server.
2. Go to the Files tab.
3. Navigate to the folder containing your server's maps (the maps folder within the server directories).
4. Click Upload and select the map file you want to add.
5. Restart the server via Restart on the Console tab so the new map becomes available.

Tip: share the map files with your players too, or choose maps they already have — that way nobody has to wait long when connecting.

Setting up a map rotation

The map rotation determines which maps your server runs one after another. Here's how to set it up:

1. In the Files tab, open the file containing the map rotation (the mapcycle file) in your server's configuration folder.
2. Put each map name on its own line, in the order you want them to run.
3. Click Save Content to save the file.
4. Restart the server to activate the new rotation.

From map to mode: trade and minigame servers

Many popular modes in Team Fortress 2 revolve around the map itself: a trade server runs trade maps where players can trade and hang out in peace, and a minigame server runs maps built around short games. So there's nothing complicated about it:

1. Upload the trade or minigame maps as described above.
2. Fill your map rotation exclusively with this type of map.
3. Give your server a clear name (for example with Trade or Minigames in it) via the server configuration, so players in the server browser immediately see what to expect.
4. Restart the server and test everything yourself by connecting.

Plenty of room

Team Fortress 2 is very light on resources: even with a sizeable collection of custom maps, the game runs smoothly on the entry tier. Is your community server outgrowing its plan anyway? In the store you can easily pick a package with more RAM, up to 20 GB.