How to install mods on a Satisfactory server

Play Your Way's dashboard has no mod installer for Satisfactory. Instead, you use Satisfactory Mod Manager (SMM) on your own PC, and it installs mods straight into your server's files over SFTP. This guide shows the setup once, then the everyday steps.

What you need

• A Play Your Way Satisfactory server that has started at least once (How to make a Satisfactory server).
• Satisfactory Mod Manager, version 3.0.0 or newer, from ficsit.app.
• Your server's SFTP details, from your dashboard.
• Every player on the same mods as the server.

Find your SFTP details

1. In your dashboard, select Open next to your server, then open the File Manager tab.
2. At the right of its toolbar, press SFTP to open the SFTP details panel.
3. Note the Host, Port and Username. Select the eye button to show the Password.

Connect over SFTP with FileZilla or WinSCP explains the panel in full. The SFTP login opens in the same main folder as the File Manager tab, which is where FactoryServer.sh sits, so you don't need to type a sub-folder.

Install mods with SMM

1. Press Stop on your server and wait until it's offline. A running server keeps its mod files locked, so SMM can't add or remove them.
2. Open SMM and choose Manage Servers in the left panel.
3. Add a new server and build its address from your four values: sftp://USERNAME:PASSWORD@HOST:PORT/ For example, a username of jo.ab12cd, a host of sftp.example.com and a port of 2022 gives sftp://jo.ab12cd:YOURPASSWORD@sftp.example.com:2022/. Use your own values from the panel. Our usernames and passwords use only letters, numbers, dots, dashes, underscores and !, so they go into the address exactly as the panel shows them.
4. For the path, point SMM at the folder that holds FactoryServer.sh: the root of your server, /.
5. Save it, then pick the server in SMM's list of game installs.
6. Find a mod you want. On its page at ficsit.app, look for a tick in the Server column, or use SMM's filter for mods that work on servers. A mod without that tick isn't marked as working on a server, so leave it off.
7. Install the mod.
8. Press Start on your server and open the Console to watch it come up.

Get your friends on the same mods

The server and every player need the same mods. Don't copy your own PC's mods folder to the server: the files the game uses on a PC don't work on a server.

Use SMM profiles instead. Set up your mods in a profile and install it on the server, then export the profile from SMM and send it to your friends to import. If one of your mods runs only on players' PCs, or only on the server, keep a separate profile for each side. When you add or remove a mod later, change the server first, then send everyone the updated profile to import again.

Turn off or remove a mod

1. Press Stop and wait until the server is offline.
2. In SMM, with the server selected, remove or disable the mod and apply the change.
3. Press Start.

You can also stop the server and delete the mod's folder from FactoryGame/Mods in the File Manager tab or over SFTP, but SMM is the simpler choice.

Take the same care with your saves. A world saved with a mod may not load once that mod is gone, so keep a backup from before you added it.

After a game update

Satisfactory updates change the game, and mods lag behind. Big updates, especially ones that change the game's engine, have broken mods in the past. When your server updates, a mod can stop working until its author releases a fix.

If your server won't load after an update:

1. Stop the server.
2. Open SMM and look for mod updates for the server.
3. If a mod has no update yet, remove it until it does.

Backups keep your mods

Play Your Way's backups leave out the game files that SteamCMD fetches again, but they keep your saves, settings and anything in FactoryGame/Mods. Restoring a backup brings your mods back with your world.

Checked against Satisfactory 1.2 and Satisfactory Mod Manager 3.1.0 in October 2026.