Vintage Story You can now pick Stratum instead of the standard server when you order a Vintage Story server from WinterNode. It is a drop-in swap, it costs nothing extra, and your world and mods carry over.
This post covers what Stratum actually is, what it changes, and when it is worth using. If you are running a two-player world and everything feels fine, the honest answer is that you probably will not notice much. If you run a public server, a large mod list, or a world that has been going for months, that is where it earns its place.
What Stratum is
Stratum is a server-side fork of Vintage Story. “Server-side” is the important part: it replaces the software running on the server, and it does not touch the game your players run. Nobody needs to install anything, and nobody needs a special client build to join.
The comparison people reach for is Paper for Minecraft, and it is a fair one. Like Paper, Stratum takes the official server and patches the parts that show their age once a lot of players and entities are in play. Unlike Paper, it does not introduce a plugin platform. Vintage Story mods stay Vintage Story mods, installed the same way you install them now.
The project is open source under the MIT license, and its release builds pull the official server archive from Anego Studios at install time rather than redistributing the game.
What it changes
Stratum’s patches concentrate on the places a Vintage Story server spends its time when it is busy:
- Networking: packets are batched and flushed at the end of the tick, with back-pressure handling so a slow client does not drag the rest of the server with it
- Chunk sending and requests: reworked so that players loading new terrain cost the server less
- Entity ticking and AI: task scanning is throttled, and pathfinding runs on worker threads instead of blocking the main tick
- Block ticks: smoothed out so large-scale changes do not land as one spike
- Allocation pressure: pooling and reuse to cut the garbage the server generates each tick
- Server-side anti-cheat: checks for combat, reach, and movement abuse
- Admin tooling: profiling, reports, player management, moderation, and scheduled backups
The through-line is that these are all load problems. They are the difference between a server that holds up with twenty people online and one that starts stuttering at eight.
What it does not change
- Your world. Same save format. An existing world moves across as-is.
- Your mods. Standard mods work normally, with one exception covered below.
- Your players’ experience of joining. Same client, same address, same process.
- How configuration works.
serverconfig.jsonbehaves the same way it always has. The values you have set do not carry across the switch itself, which is covered under “Switching an existing server” below.
Mod compatibility
Regular mods are fine. The thing to check before switching is whether you are running another performance mod, because two mods patching the same code is where trouble starts.
Stratum is not compatible with Synergy or Tungsten. Both are performance mods whose optimizations Stratum already includes, so running them alongside it is redundant at best. Remove them before you switch.
One more overlap to know about: Stratum ships its own /message command, which collides with the same command in Th3Essentials. If you use Th3Essentials for a Discord chat relay, the relay stops working after the switch. Set MessageEnabled: false in Th3Config.json and it works again.
Everything else installs exactly as it did before, whether you use the mod database, the console, or the file manager.
Version requirements
Stratum tracks recent Vintage Story releases and starts at 1.22.3. On a WinterNode server, leaving your server version set to latest keeps you on a build Stratum supports.
This matters if you deliberately pin an older version, which plenty of modded servers do while waiting for a dependency to catch up. If you are pinned below 1.22.3, stay on vanilla for now and switch once your mod list has moved up.
Updates are handled for you. With the version left on latest, your server pulls the current Stratum build every time it restarts, so you stay current without doing anything. If you need to sit on a specific build while a mod catches up, set the version explicitly instead.
When it is worth switching
Reach for Stratum when:
- You run a public or community server where player counts actually vary
- Your world has been running long enough to accumulate real entity and chunk load
- You run a heavy mod list, particularly one that adds creatures or automation
- You have started noticing stutter when several people explore in different directions
Stay on vanilla when:
- You play with one or two friends on a young world
- You are pinned to a version below 1.22.3
- You depend on Synergy or Tungsten and are not ready to drop them
Neither choice locks you in, and the world format is the same in both directions. Moving back to vanilla is more work than moving to Stratum, though, because Stratum’s server files have to be removed and the server reinstalled. Plan the move rather than treating it as a toggle.
Getting a Stratum server
Pick Stratum from the Server Software dropdown when you order Vintage Story server hosting. Everything else works the way it normally does: choose your RAM, choose your location, and the server deploys.
Switching an existing server
Vanilla and Stratum are separate server builds, so moving between them means reinstalling the server. There are two ways to do that, and the right one depends on whether you are keeping your world.
Starting fresh? Use the Switch Game tool in the Game Panel. It is self serve and takes a couple of minutes. It also wipes the server completely, so only take this route if you do not need what is currently there, or you have taken a manual backup first.
Keeping your world? Open a ticket and our team will handle the switch without wiping it.
Either way, write down your Server Options and your start command before the switch. The Vintage Story server is configured through the panel’s Server Options, which are passed to the server at startup, so a reinstall resets them to the new build’s defaults and your configured values are replaced. Having them written down turns a rebuild into a two minute job. If something did get lost, open a ticket and we can put it back.
Frequently Asked Questions
Stratum is a server-side build of Vintage Story aimed at busier multiplayer servers. It reworks parts of the server that struggle under load, including networking, chunk sending, entity ticking, and pathfinding. It runs the same worlds and the same mods as the standard server, and players join with an unmodified game client.
No. Stratum only changes the server. Players connect with the normal Vintage Story client and will not notice any difference in how they join.
Standard Vintage Story mods carry over. The exception is other performance mods that patch the same code. Stratum is not compatible with Synergy or Tungsten because those optimizations are already built in, so remove them before switching. Stratum also ships its own /message command, which collides with Th3Essentials and breaks its Discord chat relay. Set MessageEnabled to false in Th3Config.json to fix that.
Yes. Vanilla and Stratum are separate server builds, so the switch means reinstalling the server. The Switch Game tool in the Game Panel does it yourself in a couple of minutes, but it wipes the server completely, so back up first or only use it on a server you are starting fresh. If you want to keep your existing world, open a ticket and our team will handle it without wiping. Either way, write down your Server Options and start command first, because a reinstall resets them to the new build's defaults.
Stratum is built against recent releases, starting at 1.22.3. Leaving your server version on latest keeps you on a build Stratum supports. If you pin an older version for mod compatibility, stay on vanilla until your mods catch up.