Two Maps From One Server

Running both Exiled Lands and Isle of Siptah from one Conan Exiles dedicated server machine

A common community ask: "I'm running an Exiled Lands server with my group and we want to add Isle of Siptah too — without spinning up a second machine. How does this actually work and what about character transfers?" The Funcom Dedicated Server Manager doesn't expose a "cluster" option the way some other survival games do, but you can still run both maps on one box. This page walks through the practical setup and the gotchas that bite most admins.

The core concept

Conan Exiles' dedicated server binary loads one map at a time. To serve both maps from the same machine, you run two separate server processes — one configured for Exiled Lands, one for Isle of Siptah — each with its own:

• Install directory (or shared install + separate save folders)
• Port set
• Config files
• Save database

The two processes don't communicate. To move characters between maps you use the in-game Character Transfer feature, which carries the character through Funcom's cloud: export on one server, import on the other.

Setup option A: separate install directories

The cleanest option. Install the dedicated server twice via SteamCMD into two different directories:

# Exiled Lands instance
steamcmd.exe +force_install_dir "C:\ConanExiledLands" +login anonymous +app_update 443030 validate +quit

# Isle of Siptah instance
steamcmd.exe +force_install_dir "C:\ConanSiptah" +login anonymous +app_update 443030 validate +quit

Each install is ~40GB after Enhanced, so 80GB total. Updates need to happen twice but the two installs can be on different schedules if you want to stagger update risk. See the every-update-breaks-server article for staggering strategy.

Setup option B: one install, two save folders

Guides that share one install pass a -ConanSavePath= switch to split the save folders. The current server build has no such switch: the string is not in the server binary at all, so both processes would write to the same ConanSandbox/Saved and the same world database. Use option A, two installs, and give each instance its own ports with -Port= and -QueryPort=.

Configuring the maps

In each instance's ConanSandbox/Saved/Config/WindowsServer/Engine.ini (or LinuxServer if you're on Linux), set the map:

For the Exiled Lands instance:

[/Script/EngineSettings.GameMapsSettings]
ServerDefaultMap=/Game/Maps/ConanSandbox/ConanSandbox

For the Isle of Siptah instance:

[/Script/EngineSettings.GameMapsSettings]
ServerDefaultMap=/Game/DLC_EXT/DLC_Siptah/Maps/DLC_Isle_of_Siptah

The section name matters: the game ships these keys under [/Script/EngineSettings.GameMapsSettings], and the same keys under any other section name are not read for this. A map given as the first launch argument overrides ServerDefaultMap.

See the map switch article for the exact path and the LogLoad: Failed to enter error if you get it wrong.

Port assignments — the source of half the problems

Each Conan Exiles server instance needs two UDP ports + one TCP for RCON. Default port set:

For two instances, shift the second by some predictable offset. A common pattern:

If both instances bind to the same port, the second one fails to start with a "could not bind socket" error. The log line is easy to miss because the server still creates the log file before crashing.

Enabling character transfer between the two instances

Character Transfer is a game feature that lets a player export their character (level, inventory, recipes) from one server and import it into another. It works between two of your own dedicated servers if both have the feature enabled.

On both instances, edit ServerSettings.ini:

[ServerSettings]
ServerTransferEnabled=True
ServerTransferServersWhitelist=("203.0.113.10:7777")

The whitelist holds the public ip:port of each server a character may arrive from; a transfer from anywhere else fails with OriginServerNotOnWhitelist. Keys found in some guides for this, EnableCharacterTransfer and CharacterTransferLevel, are not settings the server knows.

In-game flow: the player exports the character on the source server, which uploads it (with its items and followers) to Funcom's cloud, then joins the destination server and imports it, which removes it from the cloud. Imported followers are spawned from the Follower Management menu. Nothing is copied between the two servers' disks, so the two instances do not need a shared folder. A transfer can also fail with IncorrectLevelOfEngagement, the game's check on server type (private dedicated, official PvE and so on), and CanImportDirectlyFromSameServer=True, the shipped default, allows importing on the same server the character was exported from.

What does NOT transfer between maps

• Buildings. Each map's terrain is different; structures stay where they were built.
• Storage containers and chests. All stationary inventory stays on the source map.
• Clan membership. Clans are per-server. A player transferring to a new server starts solo and re-joins their clan there.

What does transfer: character level, attribute and skill point allocation, recipes learned, hotbar layout, inventory items currently on the character at the moment of export, and the character's followers, which the game tells the player to spawn from the Follower Management menu after the import.

Managing both instances day-to-day

A few quality-of-life choices that make running two instances less work than running two separate machines:

• Coordinated update windows. When Funcom patches, update both instances back-to-back during a single maintenance window rather than scheduling separately.
• Unified backup script. Single cron job that backs up both ConanSandbox/Saved/ directories to the same backup destination.
• Server browser tagging. Use distinct ServerName in each instance's Engine.ini ([OnlineSubsystem]), for example "MyGroup | Exiled Lands" and "MyGroup | Siptah", so players see them as related but separate.
• Discord channels. One channel per map. Cross-server announcements in a shared channel.

Hardware sizing for two instances

Two Conan Exiles instances on one machine roughly doubles the CPU and RAM footprint. Plan for:

• ~6-10GB RAM per instance idle; 12-20GB under load
• 1-2 CPU cores per instance under load (Conan is single-threaded for the main game tick but spawns helper threads for world processing)
• ~40GB disk per instance (separate installs) or ~50GB total (shared install with separate saves)

For 10-20 players per instance on a 2-instance setup, target a server with at least 8 cores, 32GB RAM, NVMe SSD storage. See the server requirements article for more detail.

Related articles

• Switching a single server to Isle of Siptah
• Followers missing after character transfer
• Isle of Siptah server setup
• Server requirements and sizing

For a managed Conan Exiles setup that handles two-map clusters with shared character transfers, see Supercraft plans.